The Fisherman's Tale
by Hermonthis
Summary: AU. Katara/Zuko - A folktale about the sea. A poor fisherman’s luck changes when he accidentally catches a mer!Katara. Awkwardness runs rampant with strange half!human, half!mermaid twists. And naked bums.
1. prologue

**The Fisherman's Tale**

by hermonthis (aka dragon faere)

* * *

**Prologue**

_you belong to the sea _

There is a story told not so long ago but forgotten all the same. Only the seamen continue to sing songs about the sea gods and it strange creatures as they rise before dawn and sail out towards the ocean blue. They hum shanties under their breath, forming rhythmic clouds of white as they throw their nets overboard for the day's catch. In and out, up and down, they flow with the tune of the water. Music to appease the hard labour.

They think of the storms to come as they haul cargoes of fish from the sea, one blistered hand over the other, as they pull the ropes on deck and watch the silverbacks slap their tails against their scales, gasping for water. The ocean spray strings against cuts and bruises on their arms but the men grit their teeth, there have been worse days. The men throw out those flapping things that they don't want; the small ones with rainbow stripes and shiny, shimmering colouring, for those are not eating fish. All the men know that. The pretty things belong to the sea and the reefs where they do not belong on dinner tables, to be served on a plate with a bowl of stewed cabbage on the side. They are like pets, and pets will miss their owners and their owners will miss them. So the bright yellow one fluttering wildly against a black boot is cupped in large, calloused hands and dropped over the edge of the boat. That one is the lucky one.

The dawn starts to break and slowly the waters are changing from the black waters to a lighter shade of blue. Small, choppy waves beat against the fishing boats and promise a good day for sailing. The men break for a hot drink and warm bread that their wives gave them before they left their homes in the morning. Large steaming mugs of tea are handed out and drunken solemnly for the wind is cold and the air is still bitter. The men huddle together, each lost in their own thoughts of the fish they would bring home tonight and how the kids will jump with joy when they see their dear 'ol daddy arrive at the door with a bulging sack over his shoulder. The missus will 'tut tut' and take the sack from his hands and say, "how was the boat today?" and he will say, "the boat was good'" and then they'd all gather around the table for supper.

One of the men sneezes and it echoes on deck. The men laugh and start to talk gaily. Between the rising sun and the hot drink on their lips they break the bread and share stories of their seafaring adventures. Some of them are new, some of them are not. Some are young and worry about their firstborn child on the way and some are old with long histories of their daddy's and their gran-daddy's treasure hunting days when pirates ruled the seas and there were foreign empresses to save. A young man with no grey in his hair laughs and says that he'd like to meet an empress someday. A greybeard looks at him sternly and claims that there's nothing better than kissing the hand of an empress and gaining her favour. He's got the silk handkerchief to prove it.

They talk about drink, food and women. The air around them gets warmer and the white clouds around their noses and lips fades away. They start to gut and pack the fish into wooden crates of sale to avoid the meat from spoiling because rotten meat means no trade at the marketplace. Fishing is not an easy way of life but they make the most of it. They take what they need from the sea and give back everything that they don't. They take pretty shells washed up on the shore to give back to their daughters but take care to avoid the waters when dark clouds loom over the horizon and the lightning cries overhead. Out of respect for the ocean, they don't talk about the fish at their feet, not when the knife is in their hands. It's simply not done. Instead, they talk about the land owners and the tax collectors and the lords and ladies of the inner cities, a place that is just as strange to them as the watery depths. A place that they sometimes catch glimpses of but don't understand with all their white buildings and stiff red uniforms. So unlike their way of life.

"The wind god's happy today," a greybeard comments and most of the men nod. "Lady Katara must be back in the ocean with her kin." This time only some of the men nod. They raise their eyebrows and look at each other puzzlingly, is this another one of the pirate-hunting tales? The one with the firstborn on the way picks up his courage and asks the elder who this Lady Katara is. The greybeard smiles and the dark leather of his face crinkles into deep lines of thought and amusement. He hums a ditty as his knife goes quick-quick and the fish is thrown into the hands of another and into the crate. Grabbing another silverback, the greybeard smiles again and throws out a rhyme for the other sailors to catch.

_Once there was a lone fisherman who lived by the sea  
Happy and content in his ways was he  
When one day the East Wind decided to play a trick  
And blew him far, far away_

_The fisherman's boat came across a secret cove  
And what should he find?  
A foreign creature of sea and shore  
A mermaid by his side_

_So startled by her beauty that he  
Knelt down and begged for mercy  
She would grant him three wishes for a promise  
That she be allowed to return to the sea_

_But the lonely fisherman wanted her to stay  
They said that she trusted him  
He took her to his boat and carried her in his arms  
They said that it was love_

_The mermaid gave him fish, pearls, gold  
To add to their happy existence  
One day he rode into town on a white horse  
And became lord of the land_

_They said she became a queen  
But the Wind and the Moon missed her so  
The land and shore were calling, telling her_  
"_Don't give your heart away"_

_Once there was a lord who never came home  
And a lady who never went outside  
The distance between them grew far and wide  
With a memory of home on the mind_

_Homesick and tired, the mermaid told the fisherman_  
"_Three wishes for a promise"  
Everything that he always wanted – he thought he had, he agreed  
For a promise to visit her when the tide ran high_

_When the time of the promise came  
The lord had turned cold with greed  
He forgot about the promise and forgot about the sea  
And the mermaid who loved him_

_The Wind upturned all the lord's boats  
To forget the one who gave him so much  
With a cold breath he blew away  
Everything that he thought he had, he lost_

_The fisherman cut off his hair and went to the water  
Blaming the mermaid for his lost fortune  
He disappeared under the wave  
And became the first grey eel_

The men nodded in silence and some laughed. "The fool of a fisherman," they cried, "he should have stayed at home and given her pearls!" and the greybeard smiled with a twinkle in his eyes. The story of Lady Katara has not been forgotten, not while he's here to tell it. The sun broke through the clouds and bathed the fishermen with rays of warmth, telling them it would be a bright day ahead.

But the greybeard's eyes clouded over with mist as the light hit his face. As with all good storytellers, he heard of this tale when he was younger he too laughed when he heard of the fisherman's mistake. "A truth within a truth," his uncle had said to him, "Take this story and make it your own. Takes these lives and weave them around each other, until fact and fiction are so intertwined that there are birds that can no longer fly and fish that wish to soar. Then you will realize why all tales begin with 'once upon a time'."


	2. the wind

**Chapter One**

_the wind _

A fisherman's wife knows that her day is halfway done when the sun is parallel to the sea, giving off its last rays of warmth before the ocean swallows it whole. It is as large and round as the plates that she serves her family's food upon, full and heavy with meaning. But the colour!

Her hand reaches up towards her hair and pats loose strands in place; the colour of the sun is always a wonder to her, such a deep red, the kind that one rarely finds naturally in her world of dirt and grass. She likes to imagine that the bright red palette of the sun is there for all the fishermen's wives to see, their companion during the day before their husbands return in the night.

After all, it is the sun that signals when the day begins and ends. The fishermen are pulled towards the gravity of the sun, going father and father out onto the sea as it rises higher into the sky. And when the sun starts to sink amongst the pink-tinged clouds, the fishermen are drawn to shore and back into the arms of their wives.

There is much the sun can do.

There is much to be thankful for.

Pulling her shawl tighter around her shoulders, she sighs heavily and watches the sky turn dark. The first stars of the night twinkle hesitantly.

There is a new sound that reaches her ears, which is more like raucous laughter that carries a strange effect on the houses located by the ocean side. As the silhouettes come closer, shadowy figures emerge from their houses to light the torches in the dirt streets. Snatches of yelled conversation between the men and women as they greet or argue with each other for the night will make for some very interesting gossip tomorrow morning.

She takes a breath. The cold air fills her insides and overwhelms her in a wave of cool sensations that leaves her feeling refreshed.

Sighing, she hitches up her skirts and hikes up across the soft hills towards the house. The doors burst open and she smiles when she sees the children run out to greet the men. From the dim glow of the lamps, she makes out a figure that separates from the rest. With one hand holding a sack over his shoulder and the other hand trapped in small hugs, it is her hands that hold him when they meet.

Inside the house, life becomes busy again with the changing of clothes and the smell of fish baking and the children's questions. Despite little feet running here and mother's knives flying there the food is finally cooked and the kids scream in delight because it's been so long since they had fish and stew and Mom, why oh, why is my brother so annoying and why can't I go with father to the boats tomorrow?

Big, sad eyes turn towards her and Mother exhales, trying to keep her calm.

Somehow, the explanation, "Because you can't" is strangely unacceptable and soon father is massaging his temples and the pitch of his voice is rising with the same intensity that mother's tongue is clicking against the roof of her mouth.

"DON'T EAT IT, IT'S MIIIINE!"

The fisherman looks at her and she looks at him and he inhales deeply and she raises her eyebrows and somehow, they both seem to blame each other for the birth of their offspring, or at least, two out of three.

When supper is done and the moon is halfway across the sky, the children are still awake and father has to chase them, grabbing one in each arm as they are marched to their rooms. They beg an excuse to watch mother go to the storehouse and father smoke his pipe. Instead, they get a story.

The eldest asks if this one is about a sea serpent that eats little boys, preferably brothers, but is disappointed when she is told that it won't be that kind of story, not tonight. Father says that if he forgets, mother will be there to help him remember the parts that he can't. Faintly in the background, there is a single click of the tongue.

This story is about a boy, a fisherman actually. The eldest says 'bah' and complains that they already know all about fishing and the youngest says that maybe the boy was actually a prince who threw his sister in jail for being so bossy. But maybe the prince's sister was also a princess and it wasn't her fault that she lost the toy when they were playing in the garden so why should she be put in jail when it wasn't her toy in the first place?

Mother appears and with a smile that is all-too-scary, says that if they continue being so loud there will be no cabbages tomorrow night and they'll just have to eat squid. Then the middle child, who is usually so quiet, laughs softly to himself and draws the blankets up to his chin with a smile.

With her hands smelling of fish and stew, mother makes her way towards the storage house, her shawl around her shoulders to give her some comfort against the night wind. With her feet going one way, her heads turns in the other towards the house.

Imprinted into her mind, for almost every night of their lives since their eldest was old enough to listen, is the silhouette of her husband, the fisherman, smoking his pipe and sitting in the rocking chair. Smoky whorls formed around his head from the smoke that she knows will leave the children sleepy.

She can smell it now, that smell which is so familiar to her and gives her quiet strength when he is not home on time from a day of fishing. The lingering smoke around the house, their bed and his heavy jacket that smells of salted fish and sun, reminds her that her husband is in good care and he will return safely tonight.

He has to.

Whisking away the worries of the next day, the fisherman's wife closes her eyes. She inhales deeply and although she is outside in the wind, she is surrounded in her fisherman's arms with the heady smoke twirling around their heads.

The wooden door, weathered and whitened from the elements, creaks and groans as she pulls on the weighted handle. The bleached wood glows eerily as the moonlight illuminates it, creating misshapen shadows around her. Readjusting the lamp and the bag of food around her shoulders, she makes her way down the steps and into the cellar.

She knows the story that the fisherman will tell the children tonight. She knows because she is the one who told him, a long time ago when they were still young and much in love.

* * *

Every morning, Zuko wakes up alone. He pushes himself off the bed and rubs the sleep from his eyes. The wooden blinds remain untouched as the fisherman preferred walking around the house barefoot in the dark.

The iron kettle on a gas burner starts to glow red and a thing tendril of steam forms from the mouth as Zuko washes his face and body with cold water in a nearby basin. Zuko doesn't brush his hair and there are no mirrors in his house. On his head, where a topknot should be, there is a growing fuzz of brown-black peach fuzz. This week, which is a special week, Zuko decided to let his hair grow before he resumed his daily practice of shaving his head bald.

Two fingers gingerly touch the left side of his face where a large burn mark, that covers half of his adolescent face, can be felt. Although the scar tissue no longer hurts; Zuko's frowns when he feels the raised ridges.

Stepping outside into the early morning light, the ocean is covered in a grey, swirling mist while the sparse grass around his leather-covered feet are iced over in frost. Six more weeks until spring arrives and already the land is pushing its way into the new season.

Zuko smiles in approval, he'd like to see an early spring here by the sea. Spreading a blanket on the dirt floor, he crosses his legs and meditates in the direction of the sun. Today marks the three-month anniversary since the fire. The house that Zuko lives in currently was not the original house; it was built after the flames consumed the first one.

After a brief breaking consisting of oatmeal, cooked egg, and tea, Zuko changes clothes and decides to go out to sea today in his boat. He knows that he won't catch anything today; he doesn't need to with his larder full of roots and vegetables he bought at the market yesterday from a generous woman and her daughter. They had just moved into town last week and set up a shop specializing in cabbages.

Cabbages were all the rage today. They were rumoured to be the newest 'miracle food' that cured everything from the common cold to female headaches.

Zuko didn't believe in such superstitions, but he did believe in eating healthy. He believed in mornings and in tea, although he was no expert on the latter, but his Uncle was. His father's brother, Uncle Iroh asked his nephew to move into town where the old man could look after his late brother's son. With his own son in the military, Uncle Iroh wanted some company but Zuko refused.

Zuko believed in second chances and in a life dedicated to work. He turned down his uncle's offer to take up Lu Ten's old schoolboy rooms. He was no longer a schoolboy; those days of the academy were gone and belonged to a past life. He had to create his own fortune and his own way in life. Uncle's offer felt like taking a shortcut, the easy way to a prosperous life, and Zuko didn't want that.

Pride, fortitude, hard work, these were the values that his father had taught him and it would be shameful to forget those life lessons now. It was his father that brought his family to the seaside after they left the city. It was his father that saved the house by the sea where he raised his two children. It was his father that pulled his son from the burning timbers and saved his life when they lost everything in the fire.

Two fingers reached up to touch his scar, and Zuko bowed his head to respect the memory of his father.

He lived all alone now. After three months, he was used to it. But it didn't relieve the pain of losing a parent any less.

Later that afternoon, Zuko brought only a water skein, a knife, and a thin blanket with him as he pushed his little wooden boat off the beach and splashed into the water. The sea was calm today with a hint of an east breeze. That didn't matter to him because Zuko was in no hurry; he just wanted to enjoy the day in peace.

There were no other boats where he was going. And so Zuko rowed alone.

The light egg-coloured sun climbed the light blue sky quietly, using the sparse white cotton clouds as toe-holds in his journey across the sky. Zuko's tanned hand removed the straw hat on his head and fanned his face with it. Taking a sip from the water skein, the fisherman lay down on the floor of his boat beside the dried oars, covered his face with the cloth, and closed his eyes.

There were no dreams for him under the bright, noonday sun.

_Thud_.

Snapping his eyes open, Zuko thought he slept the day away but realized that it was only the blanket covering his face. Clawing at the fabric, he felt the shadow of a cloud pass over him. Craning his neck upwards, Zuko couldn't help but notice a fat, happy cloud dance above him. It was right on top of him.

_Strange_.

Zuko fanned himself with his hat and stripped off his other garments, leaving his arms naked and his chest barely covered. Gauging by the position of the sun and the movement of the wind, he was out of range of the town but not too far away. If he headed northward, he would catch up with the rice paddies on the outskirts of the seaside village and if continued northward, he would reach his house.

Removing his shoes, Zuko rolled up the hem of his pants up to his knees and took up the oars of the boat.

_One, two, one, two, _he counted silently as Zuko pushed and pulled the oars. It was time to head back to the shore.

As if hearing his thoughts, the white cloud tagged along the boat at a slower pace, but followed nonetheless. The fisherman raised an eyebrow at the cloud, was it mocking him? He decided to continue rowing and watched the cloud out of the corner of his eye.

The shadow of the cloud crept closer and closer until Zuko's boat was once more under the cloud's shade and Zuko dropped his oars, peering up at the cloud with squinty eyes. He felt the wind pick up around him and the subtle breeze that once lulled him to sleep turned his head away from the shore and towards the open sea, where the dark clouds that gathered in the line of the horizon indicated the coming of a storm.

Other men of the sea would regard this as an omen but not Zuko. Instead, he saw this as an opportunity to reach the beach faster. He'd have to take the oars out of the water and use the uplifting wind to pick up sail and tack his way back to town. Within moments Zuko had the canvas spread out and the white cloth filled up with breath and the boat skimmed the water like a waterspider skating across a rippling pond.

But the cloud had other intentions. It followed in the boat's wake wherever the fishermen steered his boat and soon the soft fluffiness disappeared and became an unmanageable wind that Zuko was getting irritated with. If he tacked to the left, the wind would shift and the sails would die. If he steered the craft to the right the wind would fill the canvas to full capacity and Zuko would have sailed straight to the horizon if he didn't pull on the ropes and fight for control of the boat.

The sun was in his last quarter now and the shadow of the boat raced across the waters in quivering delight. Feeling reckless and annoyed, the fisherman set his sails to the wind and held onto the rudder with a death-like grip, noticed his knuckles go white with the force he used. Zuko shoved the boat to the left, a jerky move with the wind blowing so hard towards the right when his fingers slipped. His left hand met with the wooden floor of the boat as Zuko suddenly fell forward and gritted his teeth when the splinters entered his skin. The wind, feeling particularly pushy, caught the sails at full blast when the fishermen released his hold on the rudder and thus, his control of the craft and the tiny boat spun around, disorientated. The sail, unable to control itself, swung around in a large arc and caught Zuko just as he upright himself from his fall.

For the second time that afternoon, the fisherman fell asleep on the floor of his boat. The wind laughed as it blew the wooden vessel across the waters and away from the town.

Sitting cross-legged on the bottom of his boat, Zuko sways unsteadily as small waves lap at the hull of the craft. Rubbing the side of his head, he looks up the sail and is grateful that there are no rips in the fabric. But, being grateful doesn't mean he has to be stupid so with unsteady hands he takes down the sails and steps out of the boat into the squelch of wet sand. Soft, pulpy plant materials squish between his toes and he frowns, he forgot that he removed his shoes.

Stretching out his arms for balance and feeling much like an idiot, Zuko's calloused feet are unsure as he walks across seaweed covered rocks; the beach was in low tide. A smirk appears on Zuko's face because he knows this beach; he has seen it many times on his fishing journeys across the sea. He knows that the town is well within his reach. But first, he wants to take a side trip.

Less than one hundred metres away from where he currently stood was a grotto that he knew had fresh water. And fresh water was what his mouth thirsted for right now. Besides, he hadn't eaten anything aside from breakfast and Zuko reasoned that he needed energy for the trip home.

Zuko's feet squelched and squished gritty salt water andand the pungent smell rose up from the sand around him and stung his nostrils like a freshly cut wound. He wrinkled his nose, as if that would help. The grotto wasn't far, only a few minutes walk and then he would be off in his boat again before the tide came in, but the trip was worth it.

Once he got past the low end of the beach and his feet touched drier sand, Zuko turned to the west and saw the faint silhouette of a large outcropping of rock that housed the secret grotto. He had been there once before and although his memory for location might be weak, his memory for fresh water was not. There, he could find some fresh water to quench his salty, cracked lips.

The grotto that Zuko referred to was actually a small cave, hollowed out by waves and time until the rocks carved an inner shell, green than a tortoise's. It was about twice the size of Zuko's house, approximately thirty metres at its largest. The cave was made of limestone deposits; stalactites grew from the craggy ceilings and dripped their way down to make stalactites. There were two openings, one from the sea and one from the beach. The former was nothing more than a hole in the bottom of the cave, submerged in water during high tide. The entrance from the beach was more accommodating but hidden in shadow. The craggy rock surface protruded and jutted out in odd angles that the tiny sliver of an opening was overshadowed and camouflaged by the rocks around it.

Zuko only knew of the cave because his father stumbled across it by accident when he was stranded in a bad storm. Ozai had to wait out the heavy rains throughout the night before the skies cleared the next morning. Later, he would take his son to that exact same beach, and Zuko memorized the landscape his father showed him.

With one hand touching the wall and the other in front of him, Zuko passed through the light world and into the dark. This was _The Grotto_, as his father nicknamed it, and told his son that it would serve him well in the future if he was ever stranded in a storm.

As soon as he entered the cave, a thousand brilliant lights passed over his face and illuminated the wonder of the grotto.

"Wow."

Zuko blinked, the cave wasn't as dark as he originally remembered. But his eyes fell on the pools of water on the cave floor and Zuko immediately walked barefoot across the jutted rocks and kneeled near one. He dipped a hand into the clear, iridescent water, and concluded that the cave was more beautiful this time around.

The afternoon sun was cut off at the rock entrance, but found another way through the sea. The limestone refracted the sun's light and bathed the entire cave in shimmering hues of blue and green. Zuko held his breath in awe; light danced around him, sparkling in colours of sea-green foam. It was amazing.

He felt as if he were in some ancient temple of the gods, some monument of the glory of the past days when the earth was young. A fluttering motion in his stomach alerted him that perhaps, he should leave. There was something not quite right about this moment, as peaceful and wondrous as it was, there was something wrong.

A beam of light caught his eye and Zuko blinked to recover from the spots that appeared in his vision. Stepping away from the pool of water he dipped his fingers in, he raised one hand and caught the beam of light in his palm. It was unlike the other light in the cave; it was a faint, steady glow but had the glint – a metallic sparkle of a copper coin. Curious, Zuko turned in the direction of the wavering beam. It came from the far corner of the cave alerted him, close to the edge of the cave where the rocks cut off to make way for the sea entrance.

His hand dropped and the beam wavered. In his mind, Zuko had a fleeting memory of hidden treasure in secret caves. Many of the older men back at the village, including his uncle, like to tell tales of sea pirates and lost treasure chests. Zuko remembered Uncle Iroh's enthusiasm for telling such stories; his crinkled eyes would light up in childlike belief; there were still some treasures of the sea yet to be found. It would be an adventure, a fantastic swashbuckling quest to find the heart of the ocean. And think of the rewards! His dear old uncle could buy three houses in the city and live like a lord!

Zuko felt his heart become light and he made his way across the rocks to the edge of the cave. He really didn't believe in buried treasure or bleached skeletons; most likely the sparkle came from a pretty rock and nothing more. But to his surprise, when he reached the water it was not gold that he found. No, it was much, much more precious.

"Oh."

Swaying her iridescent tail and staring out at the waters, was a mermaid. Her slender body was turned towards the ocean that lay beyond the rock walls, and by the way that her posture was positioned, she was in pain. Leaning heavily on her right elbow, her left arm was tattooed in red cuts across her dark skin and her elbow was badly scraped. Her hair, which was brown, hung like thin strands of dried seaweed across her shoulders and down her naked back.

A blush swept across Zuko's cheeks as he stared a little too long at the mermaid, modesty overcame his curiosity and he had to look away. He had been wrong to come here, he should have listened to his intuition, and now he had come across what he shouldn't have seen.

The sea creature's soft whimpers betrayed her despair as she looked down to the crystal blue waters and lamented her situation. Her mews tugged at Zuko like an animal in distress and he turned his head back to look at her. Averting his eyes from her human half, his eyes caught the flicker of the familiar iridescent glow like the beam of light that captured his attention in the first place.

The end of the mermaid's tail flicked restlessly and Zuko made out the intricate webbings of a steel fishing line entwined with the mermaid's scales. A frown appeared on his face and he felt an immediate connection towards her, he knew what kinds of men used steel mesh instead of rope. He also knew that these kinds of men like to put barbed ends on the bottom of the nettings instead of weighted balls of lead.

"Hi."

The mermaid's soft mewings stopped. Zuko saw her arms stiffen and she straightened her body and threw back her hair to make herself seem larger, more confident than the wounded animal she was. Zuko recognized this kind of behaviour, he had seen it before in stray cats and fallen birds, and regarded the situation with delicacy. He knew it was dangerous to come in contact with a sea creature, he wasn't that stupid, but something in him nagged at his mind and he knew that he couldn't just leave her in pain. He stepped back to give a greater distance between them, but also to present to her that he recognized her identity. He was an unwanted visitor in her presence.

His bare feet scraped against a sharp edge of the rocky floor and Zuko's bit his lower lip, but not before letting out a yelp of pain. Quickly he raised his left foot and glanced at the wound. It wasn't serious, but it would pain him for a while, especially if he was to sail back across the salt waters to his home by the sea. Setting down his foot gently, bright blue eyes stared at him. The mermaid was watching him. Zuko pushed his injured foot to the back of his mind.

"Don't move," he warned, his hands outstretched towards her, "I'm here to help you." But the mermaid's eyes grew wider in what seemed like disbelief. Maybe, if he came closer to her and she became used to his presence, the mermaid would trust him enough to untangle her from the wires that held her tail down. And by the look of it, those wires were deep.

Zuko wondered how long she had been here in the cave and how far she had to swim with that weight dragging her down. He took several steps towards her, avoiding contact with those large, saucer-like eyes and tried to focus on her tail instead.

The distance took forever to cross.

When he was finally a metre away from her, He kneeled down on the ground, his hands still in a surrendering position, and spoke to her softly. She eyed him with her piercing blue eyes and Zuko frowned, sensing her hostility. Well, so much for her pitiful act.

"I'm here to help you. I'm here to help."

The mermaid looked at him haughtily as if he were nothing more than the dirt under her fingers.

Zuko doubted she ever cleaned under her fingers.

"Look, I don't have anything on me. My hands are empty!" To prove his point, Zuko turned his palms upwards and showed them to her to indicate that he didn't intend to harm her. The creature hissed and snarled at him, baring her teeth in defiance and definitely warning him that he wasn't welcome.

Zuko didn't think that she understood, so he removed his shirt and covered his hands with him. He had tried this technique once before with a lost kitten.

The wounded animal had a burr stuck in his paw and no amount of licking would remove it. It had wandered all around Zuko's garden and tramped the grass before the animal finally sat down and cried. Zuko had approached the cat with a saucer of milk but that didn't help, the thing just wanted the burr out. So, Zuko brought out a blanket from inside the house and presented it to the kitten. The animal immediately took a liking to the blanket, probably thinking of its mother, and Zuko was able to scoop the kitten into his arms, wrap the blanket around him, and safely remove the burr.

Once again, Zuko crept closer to the mermaid, his hands covered in his shirt, in an offering that maybe the mermaid would think him less offensive. Apparently, she had other ideas. Opening her mouth to the fullest, the mermaid shrieked in horror and thrashed her arms around in fury. Zuko dropped the shirt and stumbled backwards onto his knees. To make matters worse, her movements were only making the nettings tighter around her fins and if she continued like this, the creature could be in serious danger of losing her tail.

"Look, don't move! Don't move or you'll hurt yourself more!" Zuko shouted at her, throwing his own arms up in agitation but nothing seemed to be getting through to her. Maybe she really couldn't understand him; maybe she really was a dumb animal that got caught in a net because she was swimming to close to the shore when she should be back with her pack. Maybe he had just come across a really, really stupid mermaid that didn't know the difference between a friend and an enemy.

The mermaid faced him and screeched even more, her wild brown hair falling about her face, and Zuko had the distinct feeling that although she was an animal, she was swearing at him in tongues unknown.

With frustration written across his face, Zuko let out a harsh "GAH" before abandoning caution and entered her territory again. Of course, he had the noble intention of calming down the stupid animal before he could work on loosening the steel threads that threatened to cut the tail off the stupid fish. If she wanted to scream and yell and throw her arms around, that was fine with him but damn, if Zuko wanted to free her, then he would. Then maybe the stupid fish could leave the stupid fisherman alone and then the fisherman could hobble his way back across the beach and into his boat and wait for the stupid cloud to blow him back to his stupid house.

The mermaid's swung her arm at Zuko's face and he dodged in time, avoiding her claw-sharp nails.

This was all so fucking stupid!

"Stop it! I'm trying to help!" he was shouting and she was screeching and both weren't getting the message across. So, in a reckless act of bravery and impatience, Zuko stepped forward and dropped to his knees in front of the mermaid, his hands out to grab hers.

The mermaid's eyes widened and her lip curled up like a wild animal's, her survival instinct bright and dangerous in her eyes. With one swift motion, she arched her back threw her body down to the ground just as Zuko was about to grab her. Using her momentum, her mermaid's tail, steel webbings and all, crashed into the side of Zuko's head as her last defence against her attacker.

Zuko dropped down to the ground instantly like a bird hit with a stone.

The mermaid spat on the ground next to his face, her nose wrinkling in disgust, and she sniffed haughtily. Prodding his head with one long finger, she shuddered in repugnance and edged away from the stupid human with the stupid hands. He smelled like dirt and sun. So unclean. She'd have to soak her hands in bleach when this was all over.

"Pervert."


	3. the cave of two lovers

**Chapter Two**

_the cave of two lovers_

Katara felt rather proud of herself. Sighing heavily, she touched her sore tail with a delicate hand. Was this really the same injured tail of hers that took down a fully-grown human? A feeble flicker of her fin made her smile weakly, trying to ignore the pain of the wires cutting into her flesh.

She did take him down. That was something to boast about. A mermaid against a human, a girl against a man - that was definitely something to be proud of. And to top it all off, she knocked the human unconscious her the first blow!

"Grunghhh."

The mermaid wrinkled her nose when the fisherman stirred.

Oh poop, maybe she didn't hit him hard enough.

* * *

Zuko opened his eyes and immediately felt a pounding, throbbing pain at the back of his head. No, wait, it's the side of his face, no, it's his neck; dang, it's _everything_ above his shoulders that's hurting. When he raised his head, he felt the crumble of crusted blood on the right side of his face where he smashed into the rocks. Touching the wounded flesh gingerly, his fingertips are peppered with dust-like red flakes.

"Great."

Pushing himself up to a sitting position, the fisherman looked across at the mermaid, who looked back at him questionably. One eyebrow raised, she leaned back on her hand, her naked chest in full view. Not that there was much to look at, Zuko immediately reasoned as he blinked furiously and turned his head away again, but the female body was a thing he wasn't supposed to see – yet. Unnerved by the sight of her breasts, Zuko's eyes widened like golf balls, feeling lightheaded and dizzy, as if he spent too much time under the sun. He really, _really_ doesn't need this view right now.

Was he drunk?

On what?

Boobs?!

The mermaid snorted, condescending of his behaviour, as if he _should_ be looking at her and her naked chest. Glancing out of the corner of his eyes, heat rose and coloured his cheeks, and Zuko is uncomfortable. He keeps touching his head and imaged a swelling the size (and colour) of a tomato growing.

Was he just attacked by a mermaid?

Behind him, he heard someone chuckling and the fisherman frowned. She laughed at him, the bloody mermaid laughed at him, her potential saviour! There's a sharp stab in his stomach that he knows is injured pride. Zuko's right hand is against his chest and to massage the sore muscles. His fingers hesitate, surprised to touch skin instead of cloth.

Oh, that's right. He removed his shirt prior to the head-smashing-in of said mermaid's tail. The fisherman frowned, he's constantly frowning with the weight of the laughing female heavy on his back, and Zuko feels naked. He wished he had his shirt at hand to hide in but as he quickly discovered, the mermaid had it in her possession and now she was poking and prodding it with disdain.

Under his chest, irritation bubbled forth and Zuko rolled his eyes to keep from saying something very mean to her. What was with her and clothes, did she _want_ to be nude all the time? Didn't her parents teach her anything about modesty? Why was she holding his clothes as hostage? From the way she glared at the cloth, it posed more of an enemy to her than he did. But the shirt was too close to her and too far away from him. Zuko didn't want to risk another head injury for the sake of one piece of clothing. He couldn't take it anymore, he had to say something.

"That wasn't very nice, hitting me in the head. I was just trying to help you."

Saucer-sized blue eyes turned towards him and the mermaid sneered, still hostile to his previous act of sexual advancement. Injured tail or not, it wasn't his place to help a sea creature, not unless she gave her consent.

Zuko put his hands up, waving the white flag of surrender then set them down. "Hey, it's not my fault you got your tail hurt in the first place."

She rolled her eyes upwards but sighed heavily when she gazed pathetically at her tail. It looked terrible and soon, she knew that it would start to smell bad. The pain was still there, but it had become more of a persistent dull ache that she learned to cope with. Picking at one steel line with her index finger and thumb, the mermaid bit her lower lip as she tried to pluck the wires from her scales. She heard the fisherman scoff at her feeble attempts, as if that act alone would save her fins.

"How about a trade?"

She whipped her head towards him, her eyes narrowed into slits.

"I free you from those wires and you give me back my shirt. Then we owe each other nothing and you can go back home to the water and I'll go back to my village." He pointed towards her tail, then to her and with his other hand, pointed to his shirt, then to himself, and then crisscrossed his arms in front of his chest, signaling a trade.

The mermaid's head tilted to the side in contemplation and Zuko idly picked at the dried blood on his head, as if it were nothing more than dandruff. Yum, crusted blood. He saw the gears in her brain turning in thought as she debated whether to give back the stinky, human clothing or to have a dead tail. Decisions, decisions.

She stuck out her hands and twiddled her fingers a little, then touched the steel rope and eyed him suspiciously. At first, Zuko didn't get it but then she plucked at the steel webbing and wove her fingers around, as if she were playing with a piece of string. No, she wasn't playing; she was _untying_ the string with her fingers. Zuko understood now – she was wondering how he was going to free her with just his hands. If she couldn't do it, how was he going to convince her that he could?

"I've got a knife back in the boat," Zuko stuck his thumb and pointed to something behind him. Then he made the motion of sharpening the blade on a rock, thinking that if she used gestures to communicate, he might as well do the same. "It'll cut the wire."

Zuko wasn't sure if she understood, she only stared at him blankly, so he decided to be a little more daring. Holding his palm out to her and then to himself, he began speaking in what he hoped was a language she could comprehend.

"Me. Fisherman. You. Mermaid." He sucked in his cheeks and made underwater, blubbing noises like a fish. "I'm going to go to my boat and get my knife." The mermaid watched silently, her large eyes widening in delight as Zuko performed a one-man wave. His heart jumped, she understood! Becoming more animated with each hand movement, Zuko was soon flailing his arms and chopping up imaginary vegetables. He hoped he was getting the point across.

The corners of her mouth lifted up and Zuko got the impression that she was smiling at him.

Feeling bolder than before and more adventurous, Zuko thought they had made progress and that their past animosity was behind them. He would help her and she would return his shirt. Then both of them could go their own way. Zuko stood up too quickly and the blood rushed fro his face and he blanched. He swayed uneasily. He'd have to take it easy, but first he had to retrieve the knife from the boat.

Cradling his head with his right hand, he turned back towards the mermaid, whose blue eyes still followed him, and stated the obvious.

"Stay here."

There really was no need to say that, he just did. On his trek back to the wooden craft Zuko wobbled a little as his toes melted into the sand and he looked up at the sky, losing his balance in the process. The structure of the clouds and their pattern across the sky indicated that it was late afternoon. The sun was no longer yellow, but an orange-red tangerine colour, partially hidden by the white, serrated clouds of the evening. The fisherman knew he wouldn't make it home before sunset, but at least there was more of a wind to help him along the way.

When he returned to the cave he was greeted, or more stared at, by the mermaid, who rested her head on her arms, lying down on the rocky floor. She looked tired and hungry and anxious, and Zuko wondered if it was healthy for a water creature to stay out of her element for so long. Her head was tilted to the side, her gaze focused on something, it was his discarded shirt. She must have thrown it away but it landed next to her tail.

"You must really hate that thing, what has it ever done to you?"

At the sound of his voice, she lifted her head form her arms. The fisherman kneeled before her and produced the knife. He felt silly, like a warrior offering his swore to a goddess in this glassy grotto cathedral.

"Here it is. This is what I'll use to free you." He shuffled closer to her, the blade balanced on the palms of his hands and he is surprised when she touched it. Her finger ran along the blade and she grasped the handle, bringing it close to her face and turned it around smoothly and slowly, the honed blade catching the light of the grotto like a newly-cut emerald. Zuko's got the feeling that she's seen one of these things before, that she's held one of these things and she knows what it's capable of.

Before he gets worried that she might stab herself – or even worse, stab _him_ with the knife, she puts it back into his hands, pressing the handle of the blade into his fingers and for a moment, they touch. The fisherman's eyes widen and he looks up from the blade into her lucid blue eyes. She stretched out her arm and his eyes are drawn to the slender build of her body; there is dried salt on her upper forearm and her skin is dry, cracked, and peeling. He noticed how she extends her arm like a ribbon unfolding itself despite being covered in tears and scars from what he discerns were her attempts to free herself from the fishing nets. He smiled, an unrestrained sort of smile, he knows that she can take care of herself.

She's pointing at his shirt. She's saying that in return for freeing her from the nets that trap her tail, she'll give back his shirt and then he can be on his way. She trusts that he will keep his word. She trusts the knife that he holds; she might even trust the fisherman who wields it.

Without further words exchanged, Zuko gets to work on the steel nettings wrapped around the mermaid's tail. At first, both were nervous about this operation and a couple of times, Zuko's convinced that his head was in danger of getting slapped again. He could feel her eyes boring into him, watching him like a mother does her children when they play too close to the edge of a cliff: overprotective. After all, this was her tail at stake, if Zuko couldn't save it, then she was as good as dead.

One by one, Zuko picked out each line and pulled at it gently, just enough so he could slip the blade in between the scales and the wire, then saw his way through the netting. The process was faster than he thought. Every time he cut a line the mermaid fidgeted a little, flipping her tail to wriggle herself free, they were working together. But as he worked through the last lines, she was getting a little too happy and Zuko had to tell her to stop moving so much, or at least stay still for a moment longer, or else he might accidentally cut her fin.

He thought he heard her grumble.

Finally, he cut the last line and the fisherman gathered all the loose ends and pulled. The mermaid lifted her tail high into the air and Zuko whipped the wire nettings underneath and cast them over his shoulder. He had done it. The mermaid was free; he had saved her.

_"Oh gods, I can finally breathe!"_

Zuko turned so fast that his head protested loudly, did he hear what he thought he heard?

"You can speak?!"

The mermaid made a sound that was like a laugh, and swung her tail around in the air. Bending her body forward, she put both her hands on her iridescent green scales and rubbed her fins to get the feeling back into her tail. Zuko stared at the laughing mermaid, stunned and stared at the sea creature with new eyes. He felt like someone had ripped him off.

"You can speak?!"

The mermaid scoffed and rolled her eyes, crossing her arms in the process.

"Of course I can speak. What do you think I am, uneducated?"

Suddenly, the fisherman felt very silly and stupid and very much like a country peasant, making all those hand gestures and speaking to someone who already knew how to speak. He thought she smiled at him when inwardly she laughed at his flailing limbs and puckered-up fish lips.

Zuko frowned and all feeling of heroism left him like rushing water. He had been had, been made a fool. He grabbed his shirt, thinking that he could have taken it from her in the first place and just left the knife for her to free herself with, and save him from embarrassment. A sour anger burst forth between his fingers and fluttered up his arms to reside within his chest, blooming forth into bitter flowers towards the mermaid.

"Okay, so you can speak. Good for you, now we can say goodbye and you can go back home." He wants to get out of here, to leave this cave so he can get back home before the moon rises and the ocean is dark. He took a step towards the exit, his shirt in hand.

"Wait." Her voice called out and he stops. Zuko thought that perhaps she suddenly remembered to thank him for his good deed. She should remember; she would have died without his intervention. But she is only holding out his dagger.

"Do you want your knife back?"

* * *

How did he end up here? What led him to stay with her in this cave and why did he run his fingers down her tail and examine the cuts and bruises from the fishing net made and why did this mermaid lean over his bare shoulder, watching him touch her wounds so intimately? She lost many pretty scales and the flesh underneath smells like raw fish – looks like raw fish. She winced when he asked her how it feels to dip her tail into the sea water. The mermaid cried out, the salt water hurts her too much.

"I can't swim, can I?"

Zuko shook his head sadly and the mermaid sighs dejectedly; so much for her rescue.

He makes another offer.

Why does he want to help her?

"I have a house, it's by the sea, and you'll be safe there. I have food and blankets, and clothes." Zuko shut his mouth when the mermaid flicked her tail irritably at the mention of clothing. For both their sakes, some for her peace of mind but mostly for his safety, the fisherman decided to remain shirtless in her presence. His clothing offends her, like her naked chest still offends him, but he's getting used to it. So far there had been no objections to his pants, rolled up to the knees, and Zuko would like to believe that by extension, they work as a sort of human tail, covering the lower part of his body just like the shimmering green scales cover the mermaid's.

"What can you do about it?" She flipped her fins, stretching out her muscles, and watched the light dance about them.

"Where I live, there's a town where I can buy medicine for your tail."

The mermaid wrinkled her nose, she's doubtful of the fisherman's claim. "That awful smelling stuff? Human medicine? That's the stuff my grandmother used to tell me and my brother about, the gray salve that stunk like sour-pickled moonpeaches."

Zuko doesn't answer her, by now he's realized that the mermaid's an argumentative one. Were all mermaids as troublesome as her? But Zuko doesn't like medicine himself (he rarely gets sick) but he's got an idea that anything 'sour-pickled' has got to smell bad.

"Not all human medicine stinks. We've got good doctors." His answer sounds lame to her ears, just because she allowed one human to lay his hands on her, doesn't mean that she would do it again, doctor or not. What does the fisherman know about medicine?

She takes one long, good look at him and sneers, completely disbelieving. Pointing at his face, she said,

"Good doctors? You have good healers? Like those doctors that tried to save your face? That doesn't look like a birthmark to me." The fisherman's eyes widen, large and round like the moon and the mermaid gets a feeling that maybe that wasn't the right thing to say.

Taken aback by the brashness of her statement, Zuko feels naked again, as if she had just stripped away his dignity and laid his shame bare for her to pick and prod at, like his shirt. His hand immediately reached up to cover the mark and he turns away. That was rude, uncalled for. He's had enough of her, her retorts and remarks and non-apologies. Zuko lowered his head, his arms tensing and he growls dangerously.

"You have no idea who I am, or how I got this scar, so don't think you know everything!"

That shut her up. The mermaid's saucer-like eyes dilate and she knows that she's out stepped her boundary. Bowing her head, she apologizes.

"I'm sorry – really I am. It just - it just came out that way." Where were her manners? Has her presence out of the ocean affected her brain this much? The fisherman was right, she didn't know him and she had no right making judgments, especially on a subject that so sensitive to him. All he ever did, since they first met, was try to help her.

"I'm sorry," she repeated, she should make amends.

"Apology accepted." His stare pinned to the rocky floor, he refused to look at her. So, this was the way it was going to be. He was helping someone in need and what did he get in return? Insults. Laughter. Trickery Her words were cruel, to point out the thing that caused him so much pain.

"Will you still help me?" Her voice breaks the heavy silence and for a moment, and she half believes that he will say no. After all, there's nothing holding him back here and she hasn't thanked him for everything that he's done. A shiver runs down the fisherman's spine, unable to refuse a plea for help.

"I'll still help you." Zuko heard a breath of relief from her and something small from inside melts, at least she's trying to get along with him. But it must be around sunset now and the lack of light on the ocean is bound to hinder him if he's to sail back home. It's going to be more of a problem if he's to take a passenger back with him. Awkwardly, he fumbles around on the ground looking for his shirt. The mermaid looked at him strangely.

"What are you looking for?"

"My shirt." Tilting her head to the side, she reached behind her and presented the fisherman's shirt. She must have hidden it when he wasn't looking, probably when he was inspecting her tail.

"Is this it?" He looked up from the ground at her and chuckled. The mermaid pinched clothing between her thumb and index finger, holding it away from her at a full arm's length and wrinkled her nose as if it were some dirty laundry. Even Zuko knew that he didn't smell that bad.

"Never seen clothing before?" He half-joked. She glared at him then giggled nervously to hide just how uncomfortable she is. Zuko's eyes noticed how her chest jiggled when she laughs. He blinks.

"I've seen it plenty of times – on adults. Kids don't wear clothes until they're old enough to get married. Well, actually before that, when we become adults. We're given clothes when we're go through –" a blush rose to her cheeks. Her blue eyes catch sight of the fisherman's bare chest before averting them away. "We wear clothes only when –"

Zuko filled in the blanks and grasped her stumbling words, the characters falling into place, and his own cheeks flare up in embarrassment. In delicate terms, she's trying to say that mermaids only come in contact with articles of clothing when they're old enough to have children. And to do that, they had to –

He grabbed his shirt from her outstretched hands and feels the same need to throw the article as far away from him. His face is on fire; how awkward it must have been for her in this cave with a human – a _clothed_ human. She probably thought that he was going to do something violent to her, a man wearing clothes. She was probably a child in her family, lost by accident, playing too close to the shore when she got trapped by the fishermen's nets. She looks to be about a year or two younger than he is.

She's silent and observing, and watched the human hesitate, tossing the shirt between his hands, weighing his need to cover himself up and to make her feel comfortable. He understood now. She waits for him to put it on and when he did, she'll look away.

The fisherman looks like her brother, similar in build with a lanky look about them. There is youthfulness in his face with a long shadow of responsibility looming over him. He holds onto his cloths like a memory of something, and when the light of the grotto passes across his face, the mermaid knows that this man is a good one. He has good intentions.

But what would her brother say if he ever got word that she was almost given clothing? She thought she would die. It would mark the end of her youth and mark her as a woman. And if the clothes were given by somebody, it would mark her as somebody's woman.

And she refused to be someone's pet.

_Duh,_ her inner voice told her. _Wasn't that the reason you ran away in the first place?_

Glancing back at the fisherman, Katara spoke quietly.

"It's okay if you need to get dressed, I understand."

"It's okay," he stammers, still bare-chested, "I don't really need to wear it little mer -" a look of confusion flashes across his eyes. "Sorry, but do you have a name?"

The mermaid laughed, threw her head back and showed her white teeth. Not only was this fisherman helpful, but silly as well!

"Then what have we been calling each other?"

The mermaid laughed some more and Zuko's joins her, a bit bewildered but amused at the same time. He didn't mean to make a joke, he was stating the truth. This was all a confusing situation, she was a confusing mermaid. Many things about her made him uncomfortable, but he helped her anyways despite her fluctuating moods, her unpredictable behaviour. It's very confusing.

From what he knows about the mermaid, she's a troublemaker. She swims daringly close to fishing lines but she's not careful enough. She's confident enough to fight when she's injured but she's too crude with her words. This girl who refuses to be a woman, with the long, brown hair and dark skin is trouble, Zuko knows it. The more time he'll spend with her, the more he knows that some small disaster will follow. This whole day has been a disaster, starting the moment he stepped into the water. The mermaid is a creature of the water. She must be the cause of his trouble.

But today has been exciting too. Exciting in the way that he tried to escape a wayward cloud that blew him over to the same grotto that saved his father's life. Today's the three month anniversary of the fire, the blaze that consumed his face and took away his father. No, he hadn't forgotten his Dad, he's his hero.

And after all, wasn't he in his father's grotto? The one that saved his life in a storm? Ozai always said that this grotto brought him good luck when he needed it, and that one day, it might give his son good luck too. Zuko sought out shelter for himself when he lost his bearing at sea and thought the grotto would save him, but instead he found someone who needed saving. He saw something that most other men would never see, would _die_ to see, he saw a creature of the sea, he saw a mermaid.

Maybe it was a sign. Maybe _she_ would give him good luck. Maybe all this trouble he was going through for her was just a way of testing him, of testing the life lessons that his father imparted onto him. Zuko wanted to believe that it was a blessing from father, that he met this mermaid on the anniversary of the fire.

Zuko caught the mermaid smiling at him, she wasn't afraid of the fisherman anymore.

He smiled back.

Today certainly was exciting.

And something about the mermaid makes him want to know more, to yearn for something that he didn't know, to explore the unknown. He wants to know why humans scare her, what clothes her people wear, how old she is, where her family lives. She cries one moment then laughs the next. He wants to get to know this mermaid, wants to know if their meeting is more than chance. Zuko closed his eyes, breathed, and opened them again. She's still there. He's still there.

He wants to know her, but doesn't even know her name.

Holding out his hand, he refrained from exclaiming his surprise when she places her dry, cracked hand in his and braces it. He should've known. She is full of surprises.

"My name is Zuko."

"I'm Katara."


	4. a mermaid's tail

Disclaimer: Avatar the Last Airbender does not belong to me, but to the Nickeloden Company.

A/N: Katara's anatomical errors have been fixed. Thank you to those who pointed that out.

**Chapter Three**

_ a mermaid's tail  
_

* * *

Katara curled up and slept on the bottom of Zuko's boat, exhausted from the events of the previous day. The fisherman's eyes fell on her, her body is tucked into a neat little ball of skin, sand, and cloth. Under the blanket, her hands are wrapped around her fins, trying to keep herself warm against the wind. 

Zuko hoped that what he did was the right thing.

She agreed to go with him, to leave the cave and head for the wooden house that the fisherman called home. But by the time they had gotten over their misconceptions and prejudices about each other night had fallen. It was too dark to risk sailing and Katara suggested that they leave the first thing in the morning, right before the sun rose. That way, they'd be well rested and have a full day to travel.

"Can you make it until sunrise?" He asked, taking a severe look at her bruised tail. Katara wiggled it and reassured him that she was fine. She wasn't alone anymore.

Looking down at her sleeping form, the fisherman wondered if the mermaid slept so deeply because her tail was no longer tangled; or because she knew that there was someone watching out for her.

She lay on the right side since her left arm was tender and covered in faint brown scars from the wire nettings. Before they left the cave, he kneeled on the rocks and took one last look at her scales and noticed that they were all turning a blue-greyish colour. It seemed as if her fins were thinning and the scales were becoming loose, ready to be sloughed off, like a snake skin. Zuko looked up at the mermaid.

"Is it supposed to be this colour?"

Katara rubbed her fins. True to the fisherman's observation, her fingers came away with a handful of loose, pale scales.

"It's nothing, really. Let's go and get the medicine, okay?"

He cleaned up her wounds to the best of his ability and used fresh water from the grotto. He learned that mermaids also drank fresh water. He also learned that hygiene was important to her, so he had to turn around and cover his eyes as Katara used some of the water and cleaned off the grime that covered her body. Understandably, she had no qualm bathing in his view, which unnerved him.

When she was awake, he couldn't look at her in the eyes for prolonged periods of time. His face coloured at the sight of her, so Katara purposely kept her back towards him, or Zuko kept his back towards her. She knew he was embarrassed. It was cute, she thought, to have someone constantly blush in your presence.

Zuko stretched out his legs and watched as the ocean's horizon slowly turn a rose hue as he waited for the prolonged sunrise. Katara finally agreed to cover herself with the boat's blanket, if only for Zuko's personal comfort, but also for protection against the wind. He wore his shirt now, feeling a little chilly underneath the changing sky, and sighed. He was worried. What if the medicine he promised her couldn't heal her wounds? What would happen if she stayed away from the ocean too long, did she need to breathe salt water?

The fisherman kept his troubled thoughts to himself and kept rowing. The ocean was in his favour and the wind was calm enough to allow a bit of a breeze that heralded a stronger wind later in the day. If things kept like this, they would reach home sooner than he thought.

Katara dreamt about her family. She dreamed that she was swimming back home to the Southern Water Tribe, her long tail moved up and down to propel her through the waters smoothly. In her hand she held the moon.

_I wonder if Yue and Dad and Sokka missed me._

She reached the double doors of the city's gates and melted through the white, stone walls and into the streets. Her father was waiting inside. In one of his hands he held a necklace that belonged to her mother and in the other, he held a stick from the dry lands above. Katara walked up to him and he presented these things to her, gathered her hands together and placed them into her palms, closing her slender fingers around them.

Zuko watched curiously as the corners of Katara's mouth quirked up and she smiled in her sleep. He rubbed his eyes tiredly and exhaled deeply. Cracking his neck side to side and rolling back his shoulders to work out the kinks, he recognized the beach where he lived.

"Katara, we're here." He nudged the sleeping mermaid gently. She woke up with a brilliant smile, and her blue eyes sparkled brighter than the warmth of the rising sun around him. For a moment, Zuko was blinded. She yawned tiredly, there was bags under her eyes, and started untangling her brown tresses with her fingers.

"What is it, Zuko?"

"We're home."

Zuko wasn't sure what to expect, probably a look of surprise or an anticipatory gasp or two. But what he didn't expect was for Katara to throw her hands into the air, thus flipping the blanked that covered her nude body over his head and into the ocean. Zuko didn't shut his eyes quick enough.

"Katara!"

* * *

Zuko carried a half-wet, half-dry mermaid in his arms as he tottered up the sloping beach towards his house. After firmly slapping his hands over his eyes after the girl's exhibition, Katara chuckled and retrieved the blanket, which was now wet. 

As they banked upon the sand and Zuko tied up the boat securely, Katara reluctantly wrapped her body with the cloth and crossed her arms.

There was another thing that the fisherman learned about the mermaid today. She had a human butt.

"You're heavy." he stated when he reached down towards Katara's outstretched arms and scooped her up. It was awkward; he never carried a girl before, much less a mermaid. The blanket that covered her lower half slid across the scales and where he thought her waist would become scales continued around her hips and around her back.

His right hand touched a soft, round bottom and Zuko froze.

"Aaargh!" That wasn't supposed to be there!

"What?"

"You have a – you have a butt!"

"So what if I do?"

Zuko dropped Katara back into the boat and shook his hands as if he just touched something unclean. She stared dangerously back at him as if saying 'don't you dare tell me I can't have an arse.' The fisherman dipped his hands in the ocean and the mermaid rolled her eyes skyward, such drama. Well, the heck with it. Who knew a thing about mermaids? Certainly not him. Half-fish or quarter-fish, he'd just have to deal with it.

"Ready now?"

The next time Zuko lifted Katara into his arms he made sure that his hands were touched cloth and no skin. The mermaid seemed displeased with his choice, but that didn't stop her from smirking all the way to the house as Zuko's face grew redder and redder from embarrassment. It told her one thing.

Zuko the fisherman was unused to girls. Katara didn't try to stifle a chuckle.

"Well?" The fisherman asked her.

"Well, what?"

"Ready to see my house?"

It was smaller than he remembered, but then again after spending a night in the spacious grotto his home was bound to look a little cramped. There were three rooms in the entire house, enough for one person.

The original house that Ozai bought for his remaining family had seven rooms. After Zuko's sister suddenly left, half of the house's possessions disappeared. And after the fire, most of the house's possessions were destroyed. Ozai's elder brother, Iroh, resided uptown and helped his nephew rebuild a new house on the same lot. They planned to plant a tree on top of the blackened ruins of the original house.

Zuko kicked open the door and carried the mermaid inside, his face focused on her to see her reaction. Instead of giving her a tour, he walked straight through the house without removing his filthy sandals and headed straight towards the bedroom. There was a mattress pressed towards one side of the wall and a wooden dressed, a present from Uncle, on the other.

"What do you think?"

Katara stirred in his arms and the fisherman set her down on the mattress. She rubbed her face and looked around.

"It's nice. It feels like a home." With the blanket still wrapped around her, Katara placed a hand on the bed, feeling the comfortable fabric under her dry and cracked fingers.

"Is there anything you want right now?"

"Water, I'm so thirsty." Zuko nodded and left the room to oblige her request. When he was gone, Katara stretched her arm against the length of the bed and soon her head fell against the mattress. It was indeed comfortable, just like her bed at home.

Suddenly she felt sick. How many days has she been missing? She met Zuko only the night before, making it two days in the cave. She traveled towards the warmer waters for four days, and before that –

Adding the numbers quickly in her mind, Katara calculated that she had been away from home for almost a week. She didn't leave a note and she didn't tell anywhere where she was going. The last person she spoke to was Aang.

Katara made a face. Their last play date hadn't gone so well.

Would her family notice her absence and question her whereabouts? It wasn't unusual for a mermaid to go on trips, especially her. Would Sokka think that she was just visiting a friend in the Northern Water Tribe, or would they get worried and send out a search party?

Her plan of running away didn't turn out as well as she thought it would. Then again, she didn't have a plan and just left home on impulse. She just wanted to get out. Besides, a week was an insignificant amount of time. She had been away for longer periods, what was different about this time?

_This time, you're getting engaged._

The thought of marrying made Katara squirm, she wasn't ready. Although she had just reached marrying age, it was too soon to jump into any relationship. The family tragedy that struck three human years ago was too fresh in her mind to push away. To a mermaid, it felt like last month. The youthful wind god's proposal was an act of bad timing.

But whom could she talk to? Dad was out of the question; he was too busy with his work and probably would like it if Katara took over the female responsibilities of the house. Sokka wouldn't mind, he already was a married man for over one hundred years. He too was busy with his apprenticeship, learning how to be the next ocean spirit. That just left one person.

Yue.

Her sister-in-law would worry. They had always been close from birth; after all, they were spirit sisters, best friends, and shared a pact that they would always protect and love each other, no matter what happened. It was the same way with their fathers. Her mother had perished in a fierce storm, protecting her best friend.

Katara bit her lip and made up her mind to seek out Yue as soon as her tail was better. She would know what to do, she was used to these kinds of ceremonies, as goddess of the moon and marriage; she knew the legal proceedings for such events. Perhaps she knew of a way to null the engagement.

But the mermaid needed a place to stay, she couldn't keep running forever. Katara started chewing on her lip and rolled over on the bed, trying to work out the details of her escape plan.

The fisherman, Zuko, was a good man. Despite his strange human clothing, he didn't seem like the type that would do her harm. He was getting water for her right now and medicine later on. This man had saved her life in more ways than one. Maybe she could stay with him, if he let her, and repay him for his kind service. It was the least she could do.

Speaking of Zuko, why was he taking so long?

"Katara, are you awake?" The fisherman waited by the door.

She rolled over and sat up. The fisherman was barefoot now, the mermaid noticed, and she thought it suited him more than wearing shoes. He held a cup in one hand and a water jug in the other. Settling it down on the wooden floor, he poured a glass for her.

"Thank you."

"How are you feeling?" He inquired.

"Good, but a little tired." Katara finished the glass and filled herself another one. Zuko didn't seem to mind; he sat down on the floor and leaned against the edge of the bed, drawing his knees up to his chin in thought.

"There's more water in the kitchen, I put the jugs on the wooden table. I boiled some more and it's on the stove, but it's hot." Here he rubbed the back of his shaved head awkwardly and Katara let him ramble on, her own tongue occupied with the plan going formulating in her mind.

_Once he gets that medicine, he'll want me gone then I'll have nowhere else to hide. How do I make him want me to stay?_

"Are you going to the town now?" Katara blurted out, worried that the fisherman really wanted to get rid of her as soon as possible.

"It's better to go in the morning, more time to shop for the ingredients." He turned around and asked if he check her tail again. Visibly gulping down his awkwardness, he removed the blanket and put his hands to her scales.

They were losing their iridescent luster and becoming more grayish than before. When Zuko rubbed one spot on her fins, several flakes came off easily and he heard Katara sigh in distress. She didn't like what she saw and neither did he.

"I'm going to check the other side; could you lie down on your back?"

Flipping over, Katara lay down on her stomach, her tail swaying in the air, and laid her head down on the pillows. She felt the fisherman's hesitant fingers on her fins and she could hear the way the dry scales cracked and broke off when he touched them.

He probably thought it was just because she was out of the water, but Katara had another potential idea, one that she hadn't told Zuko yet. If her observations were correct, then she was completing the physical change from a girl to a woman – mermaid style. And if she had any infections or permanent damage to her fins before the change was complete, it would affect her physically later on in her long life. Zuko had to hurry in getting that medicine.

Katara closed her eyes and sighed. It was not a happy sigh. Quickly she glanced over her bare shoulder at the fisherman, and felt a pang of guilty towards him. If only he knew how much trouble he had gotten himself in when he met her. She didn't mean to be a burden, but she needed his help whether he knew it or not.

"Okay, I'm done. I shouldn't be gone for more than two hours at the most. I'll get another pitcher of water just in case."

Zuko left the house as quickly as possible. He didn't even clean off his feet or change his shirt from the previous day before he left. From the look on his face, he was determined to get the medicine that he promised the mermaid Katara, and restore her back to the ocean.

The only problem was; he wasn't even sure what kind of medicine to get.

* * *

Katara lay back down on the mattress and closed her eyes. She opened them again. Then she closed them. She dozed for a while but then woke up several minutes after. It was peaceful in the house, and she felt at ease. But she missed the fisherman's presence. Without him here, her mind wandered just like it had back in the cave. 

"Happy birthday to me," she sang to herself, feeling a little melancholy without another person to keep her company.

Her body felt so tired, and her mind felt all queasy, if that was possible at all.

She didn't tell Zuko that today she turned sixteen. And once a mermaid turns sixteen, her body is usually in its last stages of transformation into womanhood. To humans, that normally meant a set of breasts, wider hips, and menstruation, but to mermaids, it presented a little more than that.

Suddenly, she felt itchy.

Katara looked down at her legs and scratched them curiously. The scales were now so pale that she thought she could see pink flesh underneath.

_Impossible, _she thought, _I'm too exhausted and stressed for this to be happening now!_

Her fingernails dug into her mermaid's tail and more scales fell off, this time in large chunks that alarmed Katara. She wiggled her hips and felt a strange sensation, something like a tingling, run up and down her fins. It was similar to the feeling when her arms went numb from being idle too long.

She tried flipping her tail in the air but tiny little pinpricks stopped her from moving too much. Searching for some comfort, she twisted her body around and reached for the water that Zuko had left for her. Grabbing the first pitcher, she chugged it down without hesitation, hoping that the drink would revitalize her mind and somehow, make the persistent itching go away, but it didn't. It only made her thirstier

So Katara grabbed the second pitcher of water and almost dunked it over her head in order to cool her body and her tail. But then she remembered that she was in a guest in a stranger's house, and that she would be soaking his bed.

_Damn._

The mermaid grabbed the blanket that Zuko had carried her in and used that to rub her fins furiously. The scales started to fall like dandruff onto the mattress and onto the floor. Katara frowned at the mess she was making.

"Sorry about this, Zuko."

* * *

The fisherman usually walked whenever he went to the market. It was a healthy exercise and he enjoyed being outside in the air. However, time was precious and he needed to get to town as fast as possible. He promised her. 

Jogging down the main dirt road, Zuko waved his hands at the driver of a coming cart that was being pulled by an ox, hoping to catch a ride to town. To his luck, it was the eldest son of one of his closest neighbours, who was a stonecutter.

"Hey, Zuko!" The brown haired man called out to him, "How are you?"

"Busy. Can I get a ride to town?"

The other man laughed. He slowed the cart down to a halt and parked at the side of the road. Zuko ran up to catch him.

"_You_ want a ride to town?" The driver repeated, surprised that the independent man, who was actually his contemporary, would ask for assistance. Ah, but Zuko looked so harried that it was written all over his face. His curiousity would have to be satiated later.

"Yes." The fisherman replied too quickly. "Yes, please."

"Sure, we'll get there and back in no time."

Zuko jumped off the ox cart and waved thanks to his friend. With a purse full of coins tucked inside his tunic, he set off at a brisk pace towards the direction of the herbalist.

Inside the shop, there was no one present except a young woman dressed in light pinks and her grandmother. Zuko walked up to them and asked,

"I need medicine."

The elderly woman raised an eyebrow at him before looking towards her granddaughter.

"Boy, we all need medicine. That's why you're here."

Blushing, Zuko explained himself. "No, sorry. I need medicine for a friend. I think it's a rash, because the scal- skin is very dry and peeling easily. Earlier my friend got tangled up in a fishing net, a steel one, and it cut into the skin very badly. Can you help me?"

The herbalist huffed and motioned with one hand for Zuko to sit down in a nearby chair, noticing how the young man looked ready to grab the nearest dried plant and run away with it. She whispered into the ear of the young woman, who was making quick notes on a scroll as she listened to Zuko's problem. The grandmother glanced at the written notes, the quill still shining with black ink, and tottered over to the back room of the store. The granddaughter smoothed out her pink dress and smiled genially over at Zuko.

"If you keep frowning like that, your face will freeze that way."

Zuko bowed towards the two women, who bowed back, whom he bowed to, whom bowed back, and so on and so forth. Swiveling on his heel, the fisherman rushed out of the store and caught the remains of a female giggle back at the herbalist's; it was probably the granddaughter.

Hitching a ride with another neighbour, they were rice farmers this time, Zuko's knees bobbed up and down impatiently on the floor of the ostrich-horse wagon as it sped down the main dirt road and turned at the next street.

He had the medicine for Katara. The old woman wasn't so suspicious of the concoction she had to make as opposed to the wonder of seeing the young autonomous fisherman in town. For it was a known fact that his father, Ozai, had usually kept to his family and seldom came to town except for festivals. His son seemed to inherit that trait.

The fisherman tumbled down the sloping, grassy hills, not caring whether pebbles got stuck in his shoes, and rushed across his small farm towards the house. He noticed by the position of the sun that he had cut down his proposed two hour journey into one. A genuine smile formed on his face unknowingly. Katara would be surprised, he was sure of it.

Zuko all but ploughed down the door as he stumbled across the wooden floor and kicked off his dirtied shoes in retaliation. He ran to the bedroom. He thought he heard the sound of fins slapping against the mattress. She was awake.

"Katara, I got the medicine for your tail!" He shouted.

Upon hearing her name, her head shot up and she quickly brushed off the remainder of the loose scales from the mattress and tried to hide them under the blanket.

"I made it in one hour. I got a ride with my neighbours." A breathless Zuko related, feeling very pleased with himself.

"That's great!" She replied, a somewhat strained smile on her face. He noticed it immediately.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing!"

"Okay, then." He shrugged and kneeled in front of Katara, and took out the bag of money as well as the bag of medicine. "The herbalist told me we can apply it right away, hot or cold, and to put it once a day, for a week. Most of the wounds should be fully healed by then."

He reached for the blanket that covered Katara, but was stopped by her hand.

"Really, I can do this on my own, Zuko." He frowned at her voice. Did she not think he was capable enough by now?

"But I promised you this." He reasoned. "And I want to finish it."

She sighed and bit her lower lip nervously. He had to find out sooner or later. She just didn't expect this soon.

Katara's hand hesitated pulling the blanket off the mattress, but considering how much trouble Zuko had gone for her, she felt a little guilty. Pushing down her embarrassment, Katara whipped off the blanket in one graceful sweep and screwed her eyes shut, waiting for the fisherman's reaction.

_Why, oh why did it have to happen today? Why did she have to grow up and become a woman?_

Literally

Zuko stared at the spot where the mermaid's fins used to be.

"Legs?! Why the hell do you have legs, Katara?!"

The once-upon-a-time mermaid buried her burning face into her hands and let out a muffled groan.

"Did I tell you that it's my birthday today? I'm sixteen years old, engaged to a wind god, and I've just grown up."

Zuko's eyes widened.

"Technically, since I grew my legs in your home and technically, you gave me clothing, that makes me your wife."

The fisherman choked. His pale face turned towards Katara, who was peeking through her fingers, and he spluttered incoherently. He sounded like a fish out of water. Katara laughed nervously. What a mess she had gotten them into.

"So – what do we do now?"


	5. seaweed and seaprunes

Disclaimer: Avatar the Last Airbender belongs to its respective owners.

A/N: A thank you to the person who informed me about Katara's anatomical error (having prematurely developed knees) at the beginning of chapter three; it will be corrected in due time. This chapter underwent many incarnations since it deviates from the mood I've set up so far. We're getting into more complicated maters and I hope the change was effective.

* * *

**Chapter Four**

_seaweed and seaprunes_

That night, Katara slept in Zuko's bed.

And Zuko slept on the floor.

At first, Katara tossed and turned and was very uneasy about the whole situation that she had put Zuko and herself in, and truly felt guilty about bringing him into her mess. However, she did appreciate his generosity and Katara promised herself that somehow, when this whole engagement and tail affair was over; she would reward Zuko the best she could. Perhaps, during her stay with Zuko (and she didn't know how long that would be) she could find a way to help him.

But right now, she might as well get used to living like humans. And that meant sleeping with legs.

On the wooden dresser beside the bed was the stub of a candle that had burned out hours before. It was late into the night and neither of them was sleeping peacefully.

"Stop scratching!" Zuko's voice hissed out, his strained whispers from the wooden floor reached her ears clearly. The fisherman opted to sleep in the bedroom just in case any more funny things happened to Katara that she hadn't told him about. That and he refused to get into bed with a woman.

"They're so dry and scaly!" she whispered back at him haughtily.

"Then put some lotion on it!"

"I can't, I used it all up."

Zuko's screwed his eyes shut as he heard Katara's fingernails scratch her skin – on his bed. _Scritch scratch_. At first her actions was understandable and her plight held sympathy, but now it was irritating. It was bad enough she had to shed in his house, but to use up all the expensive lotion that Uncle Iroh had given him on his last birthday? Unable to think of a wittier comeback, he retorted,

"Why don't you sleep in the ocean?"

Katara snorted and felt like smacking Zuko upside on the head, if only her hands weren't so occupied. He complained too much. If he had an itch, he would scratch it too. Hers just happened to be a very big itch.

"Gee, I dunno. Because I can't breath underwater anymore?!"Zuko didn't answer and that made her smile. Stupid man. But Katara heard the fisherman let out a frustrated sigh. Again.

_Scritch. Scratch._

"Katara!" Zuko whispered harshly under the bed. She ignored his whining.

Katara stared up at the ceiling and wished that she could see the sky from where she was, far away from the fisherman's complaints and her terribly scaly skin. She wondered if the moon was in that dark, blue sky. A moon meant that Yue was on one of her regular work schedules and judging by her phases, she could be close to this little wooden house beside the sea.

Katara sighed and shame filled her core. It was her first birthday she spent away from her family and she didn't even say goodbye. She never planned to be away this long, but then again, she hadn't been thinking when she made up her mind to run away. Now look at how much trouble she was causing everybody.

"In the morning, you better make breakfast for the both of us." A voice huffed.

She snorted.

"Just because I have legs doesn't mean I can _walk_, Zuko!"

The fisherman groaned and yet another Katara-revelation and the female in question resumed her incessant scratching, positively sure that despite the darkness, her skin must be red.

* * *

Yue watched her husband and her father-in-law argue. They had been going at it for at least twenty minutes and nothing had been accomplished except that Sokka was being stubborn. She sighed and ran a hand over her tired eyes, feeling restless.

Dressed in a strapless snow-white dress adorned with sky blue satin ribbons, she fiddled with her long tresses and bit her lower lip when she heard Sokka imply that his father did not care enough for his own daughter. But _imply_ wasn't a strong enough word, Sokka yelled at his father for not recognizing the disappearance of his daughter sooner.

_He should not say such things,_ she thought. _He should know better_.

The moon goddess drew her knees closer together and wrapped her arms around them, her slippers left forgotten on the white stone floor. She looked out the window and saw nothing. This specific chamber of the palace was magically enchanted to prevent eavesdropping, both from the inside and outside.

Looking around the room, one word came to Yue's mind as her eyes scanned the horizon and her ears listened to the argument. Bleak.

Focusing upon the two men she caught Sokka's eye and whatever bitter words threatened to come out of his mouth was quelled immediately. Something in her demeanor must have stilled his spiked tongue. Hakoda's eyes fell upon the goddess and he exhaled.

"Sokka, I know you're worried." The elder of the two started, thin strands of his long, dark hair started to stick to the sweat of his brow. His son just looked at him with a dark look about his eyes.

Worried? That was an understatement.

Katara was missing. The last person who saw her alive and well was Aang and that had been more than a week ago. It took only yesterday, her birthday, for their father to tell him that he didn't know where his sister was.

Sokka didn't know whether to hate the man for his negligence or curse himself for not acting upon his sister's absence sooner.

How could he not notice? Was he too busy with his duties as Chief to forget those of a father's? How could he forget her birthday party? How could he, as a brother, ignore this?

But the truth was Hakoda seldom saw his family anymore. It came with the job. Considering the state of the earth these days, the Chief had more on his hands these past hundred years than he expected. Even Yue, his son's wife, had offered to take the cloak of the moon when its previous owner had taken ill and prematurely retired to the celestial lands above. And now Sokka was under the apprenticeship of the Ocean Spirit and soon he would be swimming the underwater currents and leave home for what could be weeks at a time.

Their lives were busy, but at least there was Katara to hold them back together. Still too young to gain her legs but old enough to recognize the importance of her heritage, she remained in the city and waited.

She waited with old women and listened as her grandmother told her stories of the worlds above, she waited with the children and taught them the dangers and the joys of living under the sea, and she waited with her wild, brown hair drifting behind her for something – _anything ­– _that would help lead her to her purpose in this life.

But Sokka was sure that whatever took his sister away, it wasn't the sound of destiny calling.

It happened all too fast.

Yue was the first one to notice her absence, for Katara usually came to see her for their usual walk around the city before the moon goddess left for work. Her lunar trips usually took two weeks for her to navigate the skies and make sure that all was right on both the earth and the celestial sphere before returning home to the Southern Water Tribe. She opened the door of her bedroom and walked barefoot down the hallways.

Before she opened the front door, she looked into the kitchen to see if Sokka had been in before resuming his apprenticeship. The floor was clean but the chair was drawn back, and Yue didn't have to touch the table to know that her husband probably left some crumbs on the table.

A touch of a smile reached her lips. That man, he was always eating.

Closing the door behind her, she stepped onto the stairs that started at her front door and continued in a long spiral down to the lower sections of the palace. That was where underage mermaids usually remained, underwater, until they came of age and acquired the ability to travel both on land and sea.

When Yue's toes touched the soothing, cool waters of the ocean, magic spread from her feet up her legs. Slowly, her legs glowed underneath the satin gown she wore until there was a flash of white and she was a mermaid once more. Easing herself into the waters, Yue tore away the bottom half of her dress, folded it and placed it upon the bottom step. She adjusted the top half that covered her bosom and without a second glance, she dove down.

But Katara wasn't at the gate where they usually met.

A pang of disappointment rose up in Yue's heart. She remembered a second too late that Katara was supposed to spend the day with the young wind god again - something about playing games out on the open oceans. But still, she expected to see Katara waiting by the gate and the jealousy in Yue's chest didn't go away easily.

The goddess frowned. Aang was nice, but he just wasn't Katara's type. He maintained the appearance of a pre-pubescent boy and acted like one, despite being at least a hundred years older than Katara. Besides, there were only so many rounds of hide-and-seek a mermaid could play before the game got old.

Yue would know from experience. The hyperactive god had coerced her into playing with him twelve times in three days. The play dates had quickly become tedious.

Ah, but that was long before she started dating Sokka.

The moon goddess shook her head clear and knew that it was her jealousy that Katara was spending time with Aang instead of her that caused Yue to conjure unkind thoughts – but she didn't deny that there was a sisterly nag to her emotions that prayed Katara would find a better opportunity when it came to love.

* * *

Katara woke up cranky and not at all rested. She had meaningless whispered arguments with Zuko the whole night, scratching her legs the whole time, until she was sure that the skin had broken and started bleeding. But she didn't tell Zuko that.

Feeling heavy with weariness and hunger, she pushed off the blankets and immediately threw them on again. It was damn cold in the room. Judging by the early morning bird twitters outside the wind, Katara judged that it was just after sunrise.

Rolling towards the edge of the bed, she craned her neck downwards and saw an empty blanket. There was evidence that a body had left the sheets not too long ago. The fisherman must still be in the house somewhere.

"Zuko?" she called out hesitantly.

"I'm in the kitchen," he hollered back.

A sense of immense relief washed over Katara although she wasn't sure why. A part of her expected him to be an early riser, with his occupation and all, but still she wished that he was close by when she woke up.

"What are you doing?" she called out from the bed.

"Making breakfast," was his bland reply.

Katara scrunched up her nose and made a face. She wondered if the food he was preparing was poisoned, given the state of annoyance with each other last night. Suddenly, the smell of jasmine tea reached her nostrils and she inhaled it deeply.

His cooking can't be that bad.

Just as Katara had half a mind to yell for Zuko to bring her breakfast, the fisherman in question appeared at the door, a tray of food balanced on his hands, and ordered her to stay right where she was.

"I'm not an invalid, you know," she sulked as the sound of his bare feet thudded across the wooden floor. He set the food on the stand and sat down on the bed beside Katara.

"You're not going anywhere until I know you have the strength to get up."

Katara snorted and picked up a bowl full of white rice, vegetables, and meat. She eyed her companion suspiciously as he held a pair of chopsticks in his hand.

"Don't you dare feed me." Zuko rolled his eyes.

"I'm not." Then he handed the utensils to her and for a moment, their fingers touched. Their eyes met and held before Zuko noticed that the blanket that was covering Katara had fallen again and he coughed uncomfortably before picking up his bowl.

"I'm not weak, just hungry."

"Mm-hmm," was all he said as he chewed at his food.

"I just need to build up some strength."

"Uh-huh." Zuko didn't believe was she was saying. He had seen enough magical changes in the past couple of days to think Katara's words were the whole truth.

"You're not listening to a word I'm saying, aren't you?" Zuko shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly.

"Well, I'm telling the truth this time."

Mm-hmm.

"And this food is good!"

The corners of the fisherman's mouth turned up into a proud smile. Ha! Well, that was one more victory over her.

"Wipe that stupid smirk off your face before I throw rice at you," Katara growled at him and she held a small ball of food at the end of her chopsticks. Zuko raised his eyebrows at her, daring her to throw the good food at the chef who made breakfast _for her_. She wouldn't. She couldn't. She talked too much.

Zuko stared down at his nose and at the grains of sticky rice hanging off of it.

"Told you," she grinned playfully.

Several thrown pieces of cabbages later, Zuko cleared up the dishes and walked out of the room, but not without an order that Katara remain in bed until he came to get her. The lighthearted mood in the bedroom suddenly disintegrated.

Naturally, Katara objected to his request and loudly protested that she was not – and will not be treated as a helpless fish, but when she threw off the sheets just to unnerve him with her nakedness Zuko pointed out the red rashes on her legs that was no doubt from all her scratching the night before. With an exasperated sigh Zuko muttered something about applying more of the medicine he bought and wondered if the salve worked on headaches as well. When Katara asked why it should work on headaches Zuko retorted that _she_ was giving him a headache and then Katara rolled her eyes, turned the other way, and said no more.

The sound of his bare feet reached her ears.

"Katara?"

"What now." she answered irritably. She didn't feel like talking and if another argument was what Zuko was seeking for, well then, he was going to talk to her back instead. What happened to the nice, helpful fisherman back in the cave? She was tired, and sore, and did not like fighting early in the morning.

"You can get out of bed now."

"No."

Zuko sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose with two pinched fingers. They had gotten off on the wrong start today.

"Are you still hungry?"

"No."

The fisherman sighed loudly and noticed that Katara's back muscles stiffened in reply. He took a step closer and Katara hugged herself tighter on the bed.

"Katara, I _need_ you to get out of bed now so I can –"

"- So you can what, Zuko? Throw me out of the house now because I argued with you? Tell me to walk to town and buy my own medicine because I'm giving you headaches? What, Zuko?!" She faced him and saw that the redness around her eyes caused by weariness was also from tears.

Surprised by her sudden change of mood he sat down on the bed only to have her shuffle away from him. Not sure how to go about comforting her but wanting to understand her distress, he held out his hand and she grasped it.

"I'm not throwing you out of the house." She sniffed. "Why are you crying?"

Wiping away her tears and feeling very ugly, Katara shrugged for no reason at all and moved closer to Zuko until she rested her forehead on his shoulder, the cotton shirt he wore comforted her in a strange, foreign way. It smelled clean. It smelled like jasmine tea.

"Katara, what's wrong?"

_Everything_.

"Nothing," she lied.

A hand pushed her gently off his shoulder and Zuko pushed back the hair that fell into her eyes. He didn't like to see people cry (Mom cried, Uncle cried, Azula never cried) and he didn't like the sickening, upside-down feeling in his stomach he got when Katara's blue eyes were filled with tears.

"Don't cry," he whispered and didn't object when her lip trembled and she started sobbing again. He didn't move as she leaned on his shoulder but put a comforting hand around her body, rubbing soothing circles on her back. It was something he picked up from his mother when he cried as a child. Zuko whispered soft, meaningless things into her hair, hoping to calm her down.

Katara made small hiccups, then coughs, then murmurings that Zuko wasn't too sure he was supposed to hear.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

* * *

That evening, Yue didn't go to bed early like she planned to and ran a hand through her long hair as she removed them from their plaits. The clips snapped open easily and the goddess massaged her tired head before picking up a brush from the vanity table and her hand stopped in midair. The person looking back at her in the mirror looked troubled.

_Katara, where are you?_

She was worried Katara was in trouble. Maybe she ran from trouble and found more trouble. She wasn't sure how she knew, she just knew.

Yue set down the brush and stood up from the table. Sokka was in the bath. Barefoot, she walked down the halls and made her way into the kitchen, holding a candle with her right hand. Humming a quiet, lilting tune to uplift her spirits she placed the candle in a lantern and the kitchen brightened up considerably.

She started to make a pot of tea and wasn't surprised when her husband joined her, ruffling his wet hair with a towel.

"Making tea?" he asked.

"Bad day?" she replied, resting a hand on her hip before pouring out two cups and brought them to the table. Sokka scooped up the hot teapot and followed her before sitting down on one of the chairs and blowing on his slightly burnt fingers.

"That's hot." he said.

Yue chuckled.

They didn't sit across from each other, but adjacent to each other, allowing enough elbow room but close enough to touch. Yue sighed and leaned on the table with her elbow, her blue eyes fixed on her husband's profile and her pink lips pursed in a knowingly smile.

"So, what's your idea, Sokka?"

"Idea?"

"Your plan to find Katara."

"According to Dad, we have no plan." He took a sip of his tea.

"You were so mad at him, it scared me."

Sokka played with the tendrils of steam rising out of his cup and said to the wall across from the table, "Katara missed her birthday. She left without telling you and without a note. The last person to see her was Aang." Yue mentally counted down the points with him before he slapped the table forcefully.

"She didn't leave on a trip, that's obvious. Something's got her scared and she ran away."

"So what do we do about it?" Do they, her family, give her time alone or do they pursue a missing person? Did a mermaid who conducted her own disappearance want the interference of her family? Did she even disappear on her own?

If Katara didn't tell them where she was going in the first place, what makes them think that she would accept their aid – if she wanted to be found at all?

Yue stared deep into her teacup. "I miss her already, Sokka."

"We search for her." She looked up at him. There was a gleam of mischievous hope in his eyes. A fool's hope, but hope nonetheless. It was the best thing that she could have asked for.

"But your dad –"

"Dad won't say anything; he can't say anything right now. He's giving this task to us so we're free to search on our own!" He placed a hand over his wife's and looked into her eyes, "It's his way of giving us permission." Worry settled into Yue's face. Hakoda hadn't given any sort of authorization.

"I don't understand –"

"Remember when Dad said to give Katara three days before sending out a search party? No one knows Katara's missing; they think she's on some hokey trip to the cold north –"

Here Sokka stopped when he saw Yue's eyebrow rise in question,

"Sorry, _kinda_ cold north."

"Continue."

"It means the word's not out. People don't know. We have three days to search for Katara on our own before the officials are dragged into this."

Sokka dropped his voice to a whisper for dramatic effect and leaned closer to Yue, "Think about it. If people find out Katara's gone, what do you think that will do to us? The daughter of the chief disappeared. Everyone will think that the oceans aren't safe anymore; that our government is crumbling and it makes the rumours come true."

Yue nodded in quiet acquiesce. Although the majority of merpeople lived within the walled cities, security was needed. Their population wasn't growing as in the old millennia and to lose one daughter was a devastating loss. The magic of the old world was dying, being pushed back by humans as they believed more in science and fact instead of belief. They feared what they didn't understand. Slowly, the water tribes receded further into the ocean until they became myth – just like the wind gods of the air and the nymphs that lived in the forests.

Every new generation born had shorter and shorter life spans. Maybe that's why Hakoda voiced little objection regarding Aang's proposal to Katara. Maybe a marriage between to a god will lengthen his daughter's life and give her better opportunities in life. Who knew? Many things these days were uncertain.

"But three days, Sokka? What can you do in three days?" He smiled lovingly at her.

"I'll take Aang with me – Aang can help, I promise, and we'll search the oceans and lands for her." He gave her hand a squeeze as he continued,

"Yue, with your powers, you can use the skies as a way to look for her. You've put back your work as the moon too long. You'll be able to cover more ground if you're in the skies and you won't get in trouble for being late."

The moon goddess shut her eyes and felt a great weight fall from her shoulders. It wasn't much, the time they had, and she wasn't wholly convinced that Hakoda would appreciate their actions, but it was a way to find her. It was a relief to know that she could help her husband. She let out a breath she had been holding and leaned closer to Sokka. He kissed her brow.

Then the Ocean's Apprentice laid out the details of his plan to search for Katara.


	6. the issue of newlyweds

A/N: About time, eh? However, I would like to thank you, dear reader, for your patience. I've also discovered continuity errors. In his introductory chapter, Zuko was sporting some peach fuzzy hair, when all of a sudden he's scalp!bald again. Damn details! I shall review the past chapters and correct any mistakes I come across.

* * *

**Chapter Five**

_the issue of newlyweds _

Once upon a time, on one of the many islands where the moon resembles a vigorously polished silver plate, there is a beach belonging to the world above the waters. A beach made up of pure white sand. It is unknown by many, hidden from the human world and protected by a select, precious few women. But it is neither the island nor the warrior women who are important right now; it is the solitary woman who visits it.

A single female figure sits thoughtfully on the sand, her silhouette casting a shadow from the dying warmth of the setting sun as it sinks into the horizon. The cooler chill of the evening slowly creeps in.

Yue's right hand reaches up over her shoulder and massages the tense muscles of her back. She has been traveling all day and her journey from the Southern Water Tribe to the beach tires her. She has been worrying about her family as well. Rolling back her shoulders to ease some of the cramping, the girl brings her chilled hands to her face and pats herself awake. Her toes wiggle absentmindedly in the pale sand.

She exhales slowly, concentrating on her breath. It is time to work.

And she walks carefully across the sand, gazing out at the indefinite line where the ocean becomes the sky. Where the sun is swallowed up by the dark blue, a lighter, paler glow emerges from that horizon.

Yue smiles.

Gathering up her long skirt in one hand, revealing bare ankles instead of fish fins, Yue grabs her heavy fur coat with the other and walks down the white beach.

Just before her toes hit the first splashes of ocean spray, she stops.

She looks towards the horizon and the pale, glowing orb grows bigger and comes towards her.

Yue holds onto her coat. It may be chilly tonight.

The iridescent sphere approaches her, and like magic, it emerges from that indefinite line and floats across the water, makes the ocean ripple in its wake, with the intention of fetching Yue.

She smiles.

"Hello, dear friend," she says to the sphere as it comes to rest on the white sand, "It's time to travel across the sky again, isn't it?"

And the orb glows brighter, opens itself up like a lotus flower, and Yue steps inside.

The flower closes again with a soft hiss as its passenger arranges her fur coat over her shoulders and takes her seat in the middle of the miniature globe.

The moon is complete. It radiates a brilliant gold and silver hue as it glides over the waters, bouncing once or twice upon a small wave, before launching itself rapidly into the sky like a slingshot.

And from that celestial sphere high up among the twinkling stars, she can see everything. The slow, mournful whales, the skittish dolphins, the flickering silhouettes of couples as they converse _tete-a-tete_ behind closed windows, the dreamy sighs of children as they are put to bed.

Yue's sight takes all that the world below her holds. There is a quiet peace in the nighttime. She dips closer down to earth, hovers near a window, and whispers into the ear of one child, willing him into a peaceful slumber.

This is what the moon goddess does. She observes and she protects.

But the moon's gracious sight looks for more on this night.

Yue searches for her sister.

* * *

But there is no evening for Katara. She is fast asleep in the arms of the fisherman.

Zuko blearily opens his eyes and discovers himself in a most compromising position. He blinks rapidly and has a terrible urge to flail and jump off the bed as fast as possible. He is in bed with a naked girl who is now his wife.

But as fast as it came, it leaves the same way.

His limbs feel dreadfully heavy and it is to his surprise that his arms are still around her sleeping form. He holds her in a comfortably warm embrace with her back against his chest. Zuko thanks the stars that she's not turned the other way around.

And she snores. Lightly, but still, _snores_!

He raises his head a little and shakes it to wake himself up. A mortified and yet amused smile touches his lips. Recalling Katara's previous (and unexpected) crying outburst, she must have tired herself out and fallen asleep. He must have fallen suit.

_Oh father, if you could only see me now_.

Women are so crazy.

Katara cried and cried. Judging from her incoherent mutterings, names of people he's never heard of, and constant apologies, she was bottling her troubles for an extended amount of time. Zuko recognized internal conflict when he saw it, and the person next to him had troubles of her own.

He remembers holding her as she wept until his shirt she clutched was thoroughly soaked and his arms went numb. Uncomfortable and definitely out of his comfort zone, the fisherman stayed with her because distressed women distressed him. There's something about their honking red noses, their sniffles, and their puffy eyes that makes him want to scratch out his eyes – anything to avoid their tears.

Katara.

_What am I going to do about you?_

She's so unpredictable that the only predictable thing about her are her mood swings.

And now, with his arms wrapped protectively around her, Zuko feels strangely at peace. He doesn't know exactly how to explain it, or describe it, but his mind is tranquil in a way that it hasn't been for two days.

She's warm.

He glances at Katara and feels a very tangible bond towards her, like a string of connection between them. He is sure that they have built another bridge of trust. The progress pleases him. In her moment of weakness, she sought him out and the fisherman admitted, it made him feel good, almost important. As long as she doesn't stir too much or turn around in her sleep, hey, he could get used to this.

_What am I going to do?_

_I have a wife._

_I'm not supposed to. I'm too young. She's too young!_

_But I do._

It would be nice to have another person in the house. He could teach her all sorts of things, and he could learn from her. He lived near the ocean so she could swim in it every day.

But the reality that he is – at this very moment - sharing his bed with a girl, and will probably continue to do so in the future, just amuses him.

_Wow. I just caught myself a wife._

A ridiculous smile appears on his face. It's so damn bizarre that it could be almost wonderful. This is not what he had in mind when he went to sea two days before. It's not exactly what one would call 'normal.'

Zuko almost bursts into laughter.

_Oh mother, I'm so glad you're not here to see this_.

But does this mean they are friends now? Zuko doesn't have many friends these days, not after his father lost the merchant trade in the city and moved into the country to become a fisherman. Even then, Ozai withdrew from the loud crowds and his world became a little smaller as he raised his children.

Azula sometimes had friends over, but after she disappeared none of them came anymore.

Himself? He took after his father and became a hermit in some ways. It was just how he was taught.

But Katara's different, he discerned from her babblings. In her mind, she was probably talking to her family.

Zuko wonders if she will miss them.

_Of course you will. You'll miss yours just like I miss mine._

It might have been gibberish, but through her tears, she was apologizing to several people all at once and the fisherman wonders if she will ever leave him to go back to her watery home.

But first, he needs a shower. And new clothes.

Zuko looks down the bed, along their bodies and down to their entwined legs, specifically, Katara's bare (and red) legs firmly placed between his. He makes a face. How did that happen? His eyes roll heavenward. Oh man, getting used to her was going to be a challenge.

The first tendrils of anxiety wormed their way up his stomach and into his throat.

He stiffens immediately. The dream is over and he wakes up.

Oh yes, naked girl.

She's going to need clothes because she can't go walking around nude all the time. Zuko feels guilty about it, knowing how much she detests clothes but that was before and this is now.

His previous calm is slowly turning into panic.

It isn't going to be easy, not by a long shot. As friends, he could do with hugging and applying medicine on legs and other stuff. Heck, he could get away with sharing a bed until he bought a new one. As much as he enjoyed their current position, Zuko wasn't too eager to jump into bed anytime soon. He wanted his space. He wasn't completely stupid, he knew what newlyweds did.

Oh god.

_Newlyweds_.

What has he gotten himself into? What has she done? How are they going to go about this?

Panic becomes paranoia and the fisherman starts to fret about everything he's done and everything he's doing now. Every friendly touch is misconstrued into something more intimate, and their position on the bed is not longer amusing.

Zuko's eyes pop out of his head and his mouth drops open. There is no way he can touch her without thinking of it another way. He's thinking about it now and he's sure that she's thought about it before.

The fisherman almost wishes that they have switched places. Where Katara is uneasy about clothing, Zuko is uneasy about nakedness. But the terms of their new social positions demands that she wears the clothes befitting of a grown woman (or is she still a mermaid?) and he welcomes the thing that most married couples enjoy.

_Oh my god._

He can't go through with this. It's all falling apart now.

Uncle will find out.

Uncle always finds out. He can't keep Katara a secret. He's horrible at keeping secrets and surely someone I town will notice that he's buying food for two. Katara probably doesn't want to be confined to the house but someone will notice. They always do, especially if Zuko is in town to buy clothes for a girl.

He doubts they'll believe that he cross dresses. He doubts he'll buy it himself.

Maybe some of Azula's old clothes were still wearable. He's not sure if they're about the same size, but she's a girl, right? If worse comes to worse, he could wrap her up in an older sailing canvas, tie a rope around her waist and make her a dress.

Zuko immediately rejects the idea. That's no way to treat a woman.

As the fisherman remains on his bed, his arms slowly but surely slide away from Katara. He can't stay here, he's too nervous and if she wakes up like this he's sure that she'll push him away and think he's taking advantage of her. All the trust they have built up now could be broken and they could go back to the way they were in the cave, misunderstanding each other.

The female in question starts stirring, murmuring about the loss of heat against her body.

Even in her sleep, she moves fluidly.

Zuko's only thought is to flee.

Katara instinctively turns around, cuddles closer to him and nestles her head into his shirt. Her hand reaches up and strokes the fabric. Zuko stiffens immediately.

_I'm just a blanket,_ his mind repeats, _I'm just the blanket._

She sighs. Her small breasts rise and fall with the rhythm of her breathing. It keeps moving and she keeps sleeping. The fisherman's mouth opens in silent horror. How can she be so damned comfortable about this? Why is he letting her? Why is her hand crawling up my back?!

A single, solitary thought flits through his mind. It buzzes and whirs in the empty space of his brain until it is the only thing he can think of.

_When she wakes up, I'm going to die._

* * *

Sokka stares hard at the wind god grinning nervously before him. He has debriefed him on their current mission, Operation Katara. He has told the soldier all he should know and what to look for in the future. The life of his sister is at sake here, the lives of the water tribes are at stake here. And if Aang doesn't agree to his terms, then a certain god's arse was on the line too. 

"Oh," is the first thing Aang says.

"Oh?" Sokka repeats. He must test the soldier, deem himself worthy. It's time to pull out the big guns. He strokes his chin in thought, strokes it masterfully, thinking his presence could only be complete with a beard.

Yue would kill him if he grew a beard.

"My sister is missing, my sister – whom you happened to propose to – is missing and all you can say is 'oh?'"

"Have you looked for her?"

Sokka sighs. Hopeless.

"Yes, Aang, we've looked for her and we can't find her. That's why she's missing."

"And you – you want something from me."

"Yes, Aang." Sokka straightens his back and crosses his arms over his chest.

The young wind god looks up at the taller man, trying to read him. Despite the seriousness of the situation, he's funny. The tough guy-intimidating big brother attitude doesn't scare him, because Aang knows that he's just as worried about Katara's well being. If Sokka's plan is to bully him into helping, it was done in vain.

Aang is willing to stop everything to find the mermaid he loves.

"I'll help you," the bald god says. The one with a Mohawk blinks.

"You'll what?"

"Don't worry Sokka, you don't even have to ask. I'll help you find Katara."

How did he know? But before he could say anything, Aang shrugs his shoulders. How can he explain the extent of his feelings for Katara? She's so kind, playful, and beautiful. He feels alive when he's around her, like electricity running through his veins and opening his eyes for the first time.

"I miss her already," says Sokka.

"Me too."

Aang sticks out his hand and holds it towards the apprentice of the Ocean Spirit.

"What's this?"

Aang smiles. Does he always have to explain himself to Katara's brother?

"I know we have our differences, and I know you don't think highly of me – with dating Yue and all that – but that was a long time ago." He took a breath. "You might not believe me, but I care for Katara, I really do, and I want to make her happy."

Sokka's eye twitches and his eyes move from Aang's smile, to his head, to the hand outstretched towards him in trust.

"So – are we friends?"

_Katara would want this. I'm doing this for her._

Sokka grasped the hand of the wind god and shook it.

"Friends."

* * *

Katara wakes up to an empty bed and a blanket wrapped around her. 

"Zuko?" Her voice sounds raspy and her sight is all misty. Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, her throat is parched and raw. She feels dirty and touches her head; her tangled brown hair is encrusted with remains of sea salt. Other than that, she feels refreshed.

Touching the pillows around her, her fingers press on the occasional wet spot where her tears fell. She remembers bawling her heart out and remembers the fisherman holding her as she wept and smeared snot on his shirt. It was kinda disgusting but necessary all the same. The damn was bound to open up sooner than later or she would have lost her mind.

_But it was one hell of a good cry._

"Zuko?" she calls out again, wanting very much to get out of bed and clean herself up.

"Here," he replies, handing her a cup and a water jug. "How are your legs?"

She wiggles her toes underneath the blanket.

"They're good."

He clears his throat nervously. "How are you feeling, Katara?"

She smiles up at him. "Much better, Zuko." She pours herself some water and downs it immediately.

His shoulders visibly relax and he runs a hand through his peach fuzzy hair. He watches as she refills her cup. He looks tired and in need of a bath. Good heavens, how she needs a bath as well.

The image of them bathing together chokes her and she very nearly sprays Zuko. Her reaction is not lost on him and he kneels down to her level, not quite believing what he sees.

"Are – are you sure you're all right?"

She grins. "Never better!"

"Good," and the fisherman nods his head and leans against the wall, waiting for Katara to quench her thirst. An empty water jug later, he turns back to her and wonders where to begin.

She beats him to it.

"Zuko, I think I need some clothes and a shower." She's combing her tangles with her bare fingers and winces when she pulls on a tightened knot. "That is, if you have nothing planned today."

He shakes his head. "We have lots of food in storage." His eyes glance over the girl wrapped in a blanket. "And you definitely need a bath. You smell like the ocean."

"Huh, thanks." She grins and raises her eyebrow at him mischievously. "You look like you need a bath too."

She doesn't say it, but she's certainly implying it. God, this woman is evil.

The heat rises in his cheeks and Zuko stutters in coherently. Katara starts giggling and clamps a hand over her mouth to stifle it. She knows that he was thinking it. He knows that she knows that he was thinking about it too. Then Zuko starts to chuckle as well until they're both laughing and laughing and new tears of mirth sparkle from her eyes. They're such an awkward couple.

Katara grins and gains control over her voice. "No, seriously. I need a bath Zuko."

He walks up to her.

"Then a bath you shall have."

The fisherman scoops both woman and blanket into his arms and carries her out of the bedroom.

She is laughing the whole way.


	7. the trouble with princess yue

A/N: GAH! I am so, so, sorry everyone! This is exactly the reason why I should **never** attempt to write multi-chaptered fanfics; it takes forever for me to update them! (hides her head with a paper bag) But seeing that I've delved into the seventh chapter (or sixth if you don't include the prologue) I'm ecstatic that I got this far already! Thank you so much for taking the time to read this, I definitely wouldn't have gotten this far without your encouragement!

Sincerely, DF

* * *

**Chapter Six**

_The trouble with Princess Yue_

If one looked up the word "content" in a dictionary, one would find an illustration of Princess Yue. No one in the water tribes was as sated, pacified, or easy-going as this female. From her luxurious white hair, her white-tipped fingernails, all the way down to her delicate human toes – she was the image of perfection and happiness. When she visited her people of the sea, she always took care to lift her robes just enough so the water would splash upon them, before her slender legs glowed and became a silvery tail. And when she was the moon, she drifted across the sky so majestically that those selective few who did not know the transfer of celestial duties from one keeper to another could hardly tell the difference.

Well, that is, the moon _used_ to be content.

Sitting in the glowing sphere, watching the world revolve beneath her bare feet, the princess's emotions traversed somewhere from complacent to bored to mundane. From her point of view, nothing was out of order and there were no signs of a runaway meramid. Despite Sokka's insistence that he instruct her on how to find a missing person, Yue quietly suffered through her husband's overeager plan to scour both the land and skies for Katara.

"Sokka dear, don't you think it would be better to search the water first?"

"Yes! Exactly! But one can never be too careful!" and with that, he whipped out a brown thinking cap and started to blow bubbles out of a wooden pipe. Yue sighed heavily. After hearing his plans a second time, she figured it was time to address another pressing concern.

"You won't forget to tell father about your plans, will you?"

"No, not yet – why?"

"You shouldn't keep something like this a secret." Her husband flailed his arms wildly, as if that was the furthest thing from his mind. Honestly, the spontaneous search party for Katara had been all his idea. While Hakoda was patient enough to allow his daughter several more days before her disappearance warranted official action, Yue was with Sokka on the search party. However, she didn't feel it was right not to inform the Chief of the Southern Water Tribe.

Pouting slightly, Yue turned her head to the side and the sphere answered her whim, turning direction towards the darker part of the ocean where the mainland ended and the islands began.

Truth be told, it's not all that bad, being a mermaid. In fact, it's a lot of fun.

One can swim in the ocean without fear of drowning; you can converse to other mythical beings such as yourselves (although she wouldn't recommend talking to the swamp nymphs, all they did was run around aimlessly, screaming their heads off at some newly formed gas bubble); and one had access to both water and human worlds, granted you had to be old enough and gain your legs first.

Sometimes, without the two-legged spindly creatures knowing, a mermaid or two might decide to satiate their curiosity by visiting a bustling port city, or pay a visit to a small seaside town. Sometimes they wear native clothing, other times they dress so extravagantly that merchants step out of their shops, their jaws hanging open, and stare at the pair of exotic ladies walking down the roads, their elbows linked together in feminine companionship.

Princess Yue always hoped that one day, she could take Katara to the human world, and they could go sightseeing together. Knowing her restless sister-in-law, the underage mermaid constantly put up the front that growing up wasn't such a big deal after all.

Liar.

Katara was one of those girls who had an air of maturity around them by the time they were eight years old (counting by human standards), but secretly held a desire to break the mold and risk it all for the thrill of an adventure. She was a feisty one, for sure. She dedicated herself to helping others, keeping busy with her roles as a daughter of the Southern Water Tribes. But at home, she'd ask Gran-Gran and Sokka all about their adventures to the land above, prodding them with details of how the sky looked like and how it felt to touch something gritty like sand.

It was hard to imagine life without water all around you.

So a younger Yue, regardless of Sokka's constant whining to get his sister off his back, told an even younger Katara what she wanted to know about the world above. It helped that they were sisters-in-law, but they were still best friends. Besides, it was rumoured that the boys on earth weren't so bad looking, after all, even if you were old enough to be their grandmother.

Anyways.

Sixteen the age mermaids became adults. That was when you got your legs.

Sixteen. In human terms.

There were downsides to being a mermaid as well. For one, their method of aging was so convoluted, no one was quite sure how old they were, and how long their life span would be due to the constant intermingling of mermaid, celestial, and human blood in their veins. Over the centuries, more individuals permanently gave up their tails for human legs, and while their native blood ensured a long, healthy life – their children tended to have longer lives that favoured their mythical parent than their human one.

Really, it was a mess. It was so much easier to refer to your age like the humans did.

And to top it all off, the previous moon goddess decided to retire. That had been an event.

"Tui had been the official Keeper of the Moon since the earth had been born," people said. "Tui looks so young. With long, black hair and a face as white as rain, you would never imagine that birthing the Moon was her idea."

After several millenniums of sitting in the glowing sphere and traveling across the sky, the goddess suddenly turned to her partner, La, and told him that she needed to rest and return to the grand palace in the skies where all other spirits stayed once they tired of their earthly contracts. With a nod of his head, he agreed. The next thing the Sun Spirit did was visit the libraries of the Northern Water Tribe, and asked Chief Arnook if he could peruse through the birth registers in the inner palace libraries.

It was one way to keep track of everyone, especially when so many people migrated to the world above.

Handling the aged tomes with delicacy, a pointed finger scrolled through the names of the children born within the past three centuries and came upon Yue's name.

_Mermaid on both sides. Grandfather used to serve in the great palace in the skies. Husband's family half human, mostly mermaid on paternal mother's side._

He closed the book and smiled to himself.

And that was how Yue became the Moon Spirit.

So, here she was, sitting in a giant glass lantern that hung in the sky, looking for a missing mermaid. The princess sighed, she seemed to be doing that with alarming frequency the past couple of days, and hoped it wasn't liable to become a habit. It wouldn't do for the earth to have a melancholy moon.

Her blue eyes scanned the globe below. The towns by the seaside were asleep, and the ocean waves held no trace of disturbance.

_Really, Sokka. You should have told father about this._

"Two days," the young man promised, holding out the appropriate number of fingers to emphasize the fact. "Two days we'll have all to our own, and _then_ I'll talk to Dad about Katara. Does that sound okay to you, Yue?"

_Really, what could she do?_

"All right," she nodded as she pushed her chair back and stood up from the table. While she was born a mermaid, it was advantageous to have human legs, too. For example, one didn't have to continuously stir the water around you in order to remain stationary. Swimming or staying still, the tail had to keep moving. After a while, it was tiring.

"Yes!" Sokka jumped up from his seat, hugged her, and gave a quick peck on the cheek before bouncing off to the bedroom before retiring. Sighing heavily, Yue stared at her hands and feet and wondered they would find Katara before the girl's birthday arrived.

Sixteen.

Wait.

How many days has Katara been missing? How many days has Yue been up in the sky now? It was hard to tell, with the constant twinkling of the night sky around her, and considering her duty as the moon, she had to constantly travel in the darkness until her shift was over.

Quickly, Yue counted her fingers.

Oh lord.

_Sixteen._

Sokka was going to have a field day.

* * *

Towels? Check. Soap? Check. Washcloth? Check. Her medicine? Chec – no.

Zuko's face immediately changed from one of intense concentration to confusion. He had never prepared a bath for anyone before, much less his newfound wife, and he wanted to make sure that everything was all ready for her. Scrounging around on his knees, the fisherman inspected the floor to make sure that he hasn't misplaced the medicinal bottle for Katara's legs. She needed that ointment unless she wanted her brand new human legs to be covered in horrible, itchy welts.

_Oh wait. They already were._

Stupid girl, she should have known better than to scratch off her scales.

"Are you almost done, Zuko? I've been waiting forever!"

"Wait a moment!" Pressing two fingers to his nose, he tried to recall where that bottle was. It was rather hopeless; he was always messing up things around her. He had been fine living alone, but with a girl around him, he started to understand the meaning of the word 'awkward.'

"Katara!"

"Yes dear?" The dripping sarcasm wasn't lost on him.

"Do you know where the medicine is?" Her answer came immediately.

"Did you check the bedroom?" Zuko slapped himself on the forehead for forgetting such a simple thing.

"No."

"Oho!" He heard her chortle all the way from the kitchen, where he deposited her after so she could eat something before taking her first bath. "Aren't you the smart one!"

Grumbling, he stood up and brushed of his knees, cursing the former mermaid for ruining his bath and his pants. He had insisted that she take the first turn in the tub in an act of courtesy and to make her feel welcome. She smiled. But since his kind gesture, Katara reverted back to her snarky, irritable self and started scratching at her legs again.

He closed the screen door that separated the bath from the kitchen, and on his way to retrieve the last item for her bath he pointed a finger at the woman and glared her way.

"Don't you _dare_ start scratching."

"Yes mum."

"Don't you mean, 'Yes, my _husband?'"_ Katara rolled her eyes. Really, how could someone so sweet end up so annoyingly hopeless?

Once he was out of sight, she pulled the blanket around her shoulders closer to her body, and with a discreet hand, started to pick at the dry skin on her legs. Knowing he was right about her bad habits, Katara couldn't help but feel the urge to scrub herself clean of the awful accumulation of salt water, tears, grit, and dead skin. Or was that scales? No matter, soon the bath would be ready and she could relax. Besides, she was getting horribly uncomfortable being in the air for far too long, and her naked legs were starting to tingle strangely as if their circulation had been cut off. Water should relieve the problem immediately.

The girl watched with beady eyes as Zuko emerged from the bedroom, pointedly holding the ointment in his right hand, and as he passed her they exchanged haughty looks before he disappeared behind the screen door, arranging the final ingredients for her bath.

He really was a nice guy.

But confusing.

How was it that someone who had such good intentions, who didn't flinch at the sight of a supposed mythical being, be so impossible to spend the night with? One moment they were getting along fine, flicking rice at each other and laughing, when the mood would suddenly change and she no longer knew how to proceed.

It felt like she had just swum between two different currents of hot and cold. Friendly one morning, awkward the next, and downright incorrigible when making baths.

Really. He was the human here, and he _still_ couldn't remember everything he needed? Biting her lower lip, Katara placed a hand under her chin and thought critically. Forgetfulness was a bad trait in a lifelong partner, and communication was the key to all relationships.

She wondered if Yue ever had this problem with Sokka. That idea was added to the list with all the other things the former mermaid positively had to ask once when managed to secure a contact with her best friend. Let's see, there was the marriage issue, the legs issue, and now this.

As the girl continued to ponder deeply into her future and wondered how her father would handle a human son-in-law that he had never met, Zuko's overeager voice interrupted her well-meaning thoughts.

"Katara! The bath is ready!"

"Hm." How should she approach the subject with Aang?

"Katara!"

"Yeah, give me a moment!"

There were a lot of "if's" in her life right now. So many questions, and the only person who could really answer them for her was most likely hanging about in the sky right now. The girl sighed. Going home wasn't in her list of options at the moment, so she would have to find another way to contact her family. The extent of her knowledge was limited since she had never contacted anyone outside of her native world world, and she didn't feel confident enough to start asking random villagers if they had seen walking mermaids. That was just ridiculous.

How… how….

"KATARA!" The screen door swung open and Zuko stood in the middle, his shoulders slightly hunched in a posture of the exasperated, and his eyes bugging out like crazy. Was she always going to be this difficult to communicate with?

"WHAT!" she barked.

"I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR TEN MINUTES!"

Katara felt the heat climb up her neck and cover her face with a large blotch of red. Oh dear, this was yet another moment in their awkward life as newlyweds, wasn't it? Pulling the edges of the blanket around her a little more to hide her embarrassment, she swallowed her pride and uttered a syllable of recognition.

"Oh." His eye brows shot up high into his hairline, and Katara immediately came to the conclusion that this fisherman was not the same person she had initially met at the cave before this all happened. He was more animated, livelier, and if she was correct, horribly embarrassed by the whole situation which led to his exaggerated emotions.

How did she know? Katara knew because she was experiencing those same emotions, too.

"All right," she uttered at long last, squaring her shoulders and waiting for her fisherman to pick her up into his arms. They both knew that she was unable to walk. She hadn't tried it yet. "Well, aren't you going to carry me across the threshold or something like that?"

"I think it's a little late for that."

"Then carry me," she insisted. If he wanted to get a bath, then he had to wait until she finished hers first.

"Why should I do that?" The corners of his mouth turned up as Zuko leaned against the door frame, his body angled in a manner that exposed his lean stomach, and smirked. His strangely aloof manner registered a word in her mind (_Oh, that's a flirt!_), before he turned his gaze away and buried his face into the crook of his arm.

Wait.

What?

WHAT?

Did Zuko just pass a glance at her? Did the girl-conscious fisherman just attempt to _flirt_ with her?!

The world must be ending.

As Katara's mouth opened in disbelief and her already distressed mind tried to come to terms with this new advancement in their relationship, Zuko immediately regretted his spontaneous decision to act suave towards his new wife. Perhaps his delivery didn't come across as he hoped, because he was sure, despite what the guys at the village tried to plant into his bachelor-minded brain, that a girl's reaction should be one of absolutely confusion. As soon as he had the phrase, his body flared up and he had to turn away from her, hoping to expire from mortification.

Besides, Katara's stink-face wasn't doing wonders to his fast-sinking confidence either. It was a fact: he was hopeless with women.

"Um, okay." Finally managing to sort her thoughts into some sort of semblance, Katara forced a smile upon her lips and eyed the hiding fisherman standing in the doorway. "I – I think I'm ready for that bath, Zuko."

He turned his head in her direction and their auras immediately caught onto each other – the air surrounding them sparked with electricity, and they both had to stare at the ground and stubbornly pretend that their blooming relationship hadn't taken a turn for the worse and both were acutely self-conscious about the other.

"Okay, Zuko. I'm ready for my bath."

"Sure." Without thinking, he spluttered, "Can you walk?" She shook her head vigorously, inwardly cringing at the thought that he would have to lay his hands on her. Awkward, she could deal with. Amorous - not so much.

Keeping his eyes turned down, Zuko knelt beside her and slipped one hand underneath her knees while the other supported her back. Thankfully, she clutched the blanket around her body to keep her decency – and then it struck him.

He almost dropped her.

"Ah – sorry." Gathering her closer to his chest, Zuko teetered on his heels for two seconds before taking a step forward in the direction of the bath. They were both silent.

Katara had adapted to her new life already. She was using clothing as protection.

Katara. Who relished the freedom of nakedness and wished to expose her small breasts to the world, was now trying to make herself as small as possible in his arms.

And with this surprising revelation whirring in his mind like an overexcited gnat, Zuko wasn't sure if he liked the idea that his formerly wild mermaid was becoming tame so soon.

Hot and cold.

Back and forth.

Were they ever going to understand each other?


End file.
